Chris & Kelly's Travel Adventures

Last night we arrived in Perugia.  Perugia annually holds the largest European Chocolate Festival.  The festival is generally 8 days long and is held in historic downtown Perugia.  Last year the festival was cancelled because of Covid-19, and this year it was moved to a fairgrounds for health guidelines.  But true to the festival's reputation, it was huge and dedicated to all things chocolate.

Chocolate is made from the cacao plant.  Huge pods are harvested and the seeds are separated from the pulp.  The seeds are left out to dry, then cleaned and roasted. Then the shells are removed, and the nibs (cores of the cocoa bean) are ground into cocoa butter.  Then other ingredients are added, such as milk and/or sugar, depending on what kind of final chocolate you want.  The paste is then kneaded until it is very smooth.  At this point it can be heated and tempered and poured into molds, resulting in shiny, smooth, edible chocolate.  

The ruby chocolate warrior and the headphones are both carved from solid chocolate and each are over 10 ft. tall.  

However, the choco climbing wall is not actually chocolate.  🤔

Our chocotickets were actually 4 coupons for free chocolate.  One of them gained you entrance into this huge table shaped like Italy, filled with different kinds of chocolates.  Each coupon got you a little box shaped like a house, and you could fill it with your favorite flavors.  

Another coupon was to a Pinocchio area, where the end reward was a bag of chocolate coins.  Chris pointed out a T-shirt that said in Italian "Pinocchio says he does not like chocolate," with a picture of Pinocchio with a very, very, very long nose!

I could not attend a chocolate festival and not get a cup of dark hot chocolate, the coffee cup tables were a nice touch. 

Chris and I both agreed that while there was fun and art at the festival, the concentration was on variety, quality and taste of the chocolate itself.  We counted over a dozen countries represented (Italy, Greece, Spain, France, Great Britian, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Scotland, Brazil, Costa Rica, Latvia, Bolivia, Equador, and Uganda).  We saw chocolate in liquid form, free-hand, molded, and as butters.  White chocolate, Milk, Dark, and Extra Dark were are all included.  You could get any flavor chocolate studded with nuts, cereals, dried fruits, dried herbs or flowers, candies, honey, jams, and/or alcohol. 

This festival was 3 convention halls wide.  It was like trying to attend the state fair in Salem.  They even had a choco train to help shuttle people from parking lots to the fairgrounds.  It was a very sweet day!