after our disasterous thursday incident, we went back to perugia yesterday for EUROCHOCOLATE!! even though it was raining really badly, there was no way we'd miss this.
it took us about an hour to actually get into town and find parking (from the highway, which normally takes 10 mins). but finally, we were wandering through heaven. there must have been about 50 chocolate stands selling just about everything chocolate related. we saw:
-chocolate lamps
-chocolate liquour (grappa, rum...)
-every kind of chocolate covered fruit and nut
-slabs of chocolate bigger than chris' head
-chocolate kebabs (a crepe topped with chocolate shavings, strawberry and fudge sauces and whipped cream)
-chocolate covered bananas with nuts (i had one of those and it make my day!)
-many many flavours of hot chocolate (ie - fig, hazelnut, mint, almond)
and so much more!! we fought all the crazy pushing and shoving (imagine 1000s of italians, who normally don't care about personal space or smashing through you to get to where they want), with umbrellas. brutal! hahah. but we waited at the sculpture stages for FREE CHOCOLATE!! that's right. as they carve the statue out of this huge slab of chocolate (honestly, it was probably the size of a fiat panda), there are people collecting the discarded chunks/scraps to give away. we waited twice...who can resist free perugina chocolate!?!? (they are the ones who make baci and they are based in perugia). and we sampled much more chocolate than we probably should have. it was so fun and SO worth waiting in the rain!
it took us about an hour to actually get into town and find parking (from the highway, which normally takes 10 mins). but finally, we were wandering through heaven. there must have been about 50 chocolate stands selling just about everything chocolate related. we saw:
-chocolate lamps
-chocolate liquour (grappa, rum...)
-every kind of chocolate covered fruit and nut
-slabs of chocolate bigger than chris' head
-chocolate kebabs (a crepe topped with chocolate shavings, strawberry and fudge sauces and whipped cream)
-chocolate covered bananas with nuts (i had one of those and it make my day!)
-many many flavours of hot chocolate (ie - fig, hazelnut, mint, almond)
and so much more!! we fought all the crazy pushing and shoving (imagine 1000s of italians, who normally don't care about personal space or smashing through you to get to where they want), with umbrellas. brutal! hahah. but we waited at the sculpture stages for FREE CHOCOLATE!! that's right. as they carve the statue out of this huge slab of chocolate (honestly, it was probably the size of a fiat panda), there are people collecting the discarded chunks/scraps to give away. we waited twice...who can resist free perugina chocolate!?!? (they are the ones who make baci and they are based in perugia). and we sampled much more chocolate than we probably should have. it was so fun and SO worth waiting in the rain!
after perugia, we headed over to ALTROCIOCCOLATO. it's an alternative festival...kind of a "stick it to the man" hippiefest with lots of fair trade stuff on sale. i got a dark mint chocolate bar, though we haven't tried it yet. there were lots of people selling crafts and jewellery (really cute stuff) and many booths to raise awareness for social issues (ie - amnesty international). there were also many art exhibits to look at. it was small...and for a chocolate festival, there wasn't much chocolate. hahaha. but it was really great to see the alternative to something super corporate like Eurochocolate. and, we got this amazing panini on our way out.
really fun day!! how could a day full of chocolate NOT be amazing?!!
really fun day!! how could a day full of chocolate NOT be amazing?!!