Chocolate

With Hazelnuts!

After having taken a one-and-a-half-hour train ride to Rome, navigating the Rome A-line metro for fifteen minutes, and changing trains during a three-hour train ride, I arrived at the Perugia train station, surrounded by tourists of all languages, accompanied by 1.5 Americans and 1.5 Italians (three total). We then crammed our selves into the remaining space on the “Choco-line” bus up the hill that forms the city, and from the end of the bus line followed the meandering road up the hillside to the large white pavilion to receive our cards. At the end of the day, this would be undone, returning sans Rome but instead waiting for an hour in a brighter lit train station. This was our pilgrimage for chocolate.

This is the Perugia Chocolate festival, with an estimated attendance of one million people, all there to try free samples from the largest chocolate companies in Italia and to then buy much more. Lines are not long, for there are no lines, only stationary mobs with mothers pushing children through, trying to get their children and themselves that next bit of chocolate. Free samples are provided via the Choco-card, which is stamped at each station. Pudding, grand marnier, a chocolate hammer, a pencil, chocolate vitamins, and a wine tasting are among the offerings of the choco-card this year, although many other samples exist as well. We wander through the mobs for a while. I buy dark chocolate and hazelnut bark for later and a Perugian hot chocolate for then. Perugian hot chocolate, however, is actually superheated pudding with a cookie straw drunk from a plastic cup. As delicious as it is, it also burns the mouth, but is thick and delicious anyway. I also buy a dark chocolate map of central Perugia for Anna, as I will be returning late and need to give her a gift in return. Although it has taken me a month and a half, I have finally realized that by “not eating chocolate”, she means that you have to give it to her for her to eat it. I also buy, along with the student she had two years ago, a model Fiat cinquecento, or 500, the same type as she loves to drive. We then spend the rest of the time continuing to wander, eventually just standing and watching the beautiful sunset. As the city is on a hill, one can see five towns from the sides. One of these is Assisi, home of San Francisco, the (abbey?) of which can be seen from Perugia. One can also see, closer by, the red sunlight hitting churches and rooftops. Although the entire festival teems with people, all there are there for the sake of chocolate, and we have a good time, despite the moments of complete gridlock. The chocolate I buy there, the bark alone, lasts me until I write this, in mid-November. I still have some left.

Photo Link: http://picasaweb.google.it/vetus.veneficus/PerugiaChocolateFestival#