There is a sad consequence to my decision to move to Italy... my yearly pilgrimage to Fairfax, Virginia for the annual Chocolate Festival with the beautiful women on my mom's side of the family is a victim of geography.
While I may miss this wonderful opportunity to sample the D.C. metro area's finest confections, fear not, I have found another chocolate festival to fill the hole in my heart (and belly).
Perugia is a populare small city that has its own chocolate company and hosts a big chocolate festival each year. It's most well known product has to be "Baci" (Kisses- yummy chocolate bon-bons that are filled with hazelnut goodness- you can get them at the checkout of any grocery store) 
This year, the event was sponsored by Eurochocolate, a Europe wide chocolate organization that has festivals a few times a year in different European cities. The next one is in February in Switzerland!
The entire small city, a beautiful place, 
transforms to accomodate the massive influx of chocolate craving Italians and foreigners! Special "Choco-Line" busses circulate perpetually taking drooling visitors from the train station up the great hill to the ancient part of the city. Rachel and I wanted to do it in a day, but knew about all our school work obligations so we got up at 5am on Sunday, hopped on an early train, studied on the way there... ok that's a stretch... we began studying when we were spotted by a group of Ph.D. students from Florence who had been partying all night in Bologna. They were from all over Europe and convinced us to join them as they sang Irish and Scottish folk songs... much to the chagrin of the sleepy eyed passengers who were not still drinking Heineken at 7:15 am. We didn't partake in that part but enjoyed the camaraderie on our commute.
transforms to accomodate the massive influx of chocolate craving Italians and foreigners! Special "Choco-Line" busses circulate perpetually taking drooling visitors from the train station up the great hill to the ancient part of the city. Rachel and I wanted to do it in a day, but knew about all our school work obligations so we got up at 5am on Sunday, hopped on an early train, studied on the way there... ok that's a stretch... we began studying when we were spotted by a group of Ph.D. students from Florence who had been partying all night in Bologna. They were from all over Europe and convinced us to join them as they sang Irish and Scottish folk songs... much to the chagrin of the sleepy eyed passengers who were not still drinking Heineken at 7:15 am. We didn't partake in that part but enjoyed the camaraderie on our commute.Once you arrive and take the bus, you make your way up a walkway to an old stone castle where the stands begin. Exiting the establishment, you find yourself completely crowded on each side and herding yourself along in between all the stands by every chocolate maker you can imagine. Some are giving small samples- be ready to push! Chocolate liquor, chocolate bars, confections, spreads (think of 20 varieties of Nutella), crepes, truffles, even pasta with cocoa in it are everywhere you look. It's hard to fully describe the smells, but heavenly begins... It was great to see all the fancy chefs in big hats putting together
plates of chocolate slices and cream or making new bon bons. Live music peppered the afternoon but the majority of the noise came from the masses anxiously ordering their deliciousness! Children milled about with candy in both hands and smears on their blissful faces. Parents juggled balloons and bags of treats and tried to find the time to dabble in the liquors served in chocolate shot glasses. Pictures try to make up for my vocabulary inadequacies:
plates of chocolate slices and cream or making new bon bons. Live music peppered the afternoon but the majority of the noise came from the masses anxiously ordering their deliciousness! Children milled about with candy in both hands and smears on their blissful faces. Parents juggled balloons and bags of treats and tried to find the time to dabble in the liquors served in chocolate shot glasses. Pictures try to make up for my vocabulary inadequacies: 
In addition, there were some specialty food stands set up. I got to sample truffle (the mushroom variety) spreads, truffle cheese and salami, and ended up buying some porcini/truffle spread that made the most incredible pasta and eggs for me for a few weeks to come :)
We hopped on an over-crowded train early in the afternoon and had to stand for over an hour until our connection in an unknown city (the train out of our normal connection city was completely sold out by the time we tried to get our tickets that morning- this chocofest is serious business) and found a wonderful street market where we found wonderful mediterranean dried fruits and olives that provided some real substinance to the day.
Amazingly, we got a lot of schoolwork done on those long train rides and counted the entire day as a success. My roommates, who bailed at the last minute, were also most grateful as they were rewarded for their absence with treats :)
We hopped on an over-crowded train early in the afternoon and had to stand for over an hour until our connection in an unknown city (the train out of our normal connection city was completely sold out by the time we tried to get our tickets that morning- this chocofest is serious business) and found a wonderful street market where we found wonderful mediterranean dried fruits and olives that provided some real substinance to the day.
Amazingly, we got a lot of schoolwork done on those long train rides and counted the entire day as a success. My roommates, who bailed at the last minute, were also most grateful as they were rewarded for their absence with treats :)
1 comment:
Jealous! So very very jealous!
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