This past weekend Sarah and I took the train two hours to Perugia for a huge chocolate festival called EuroChocolate (and also a little bit to see my friend Vanessa). One of the coolest things about this city, besides that it hosts a chocolate festival is that they have these trams that take you up to the city center called minimetros. They are little, one-car "buses" that spiral up the hills. It felt like being on a really calm roller coaster (mom, you would like it). The city overall is really quaint and oh so hilly! Vanessa, being used to the city by now was speed walking all over the place while Sarah & I were definitely struggling to keep up.For dinner we met up with Vanessa's friends, who I liked very much, and went to this really cool place (it's Italian name escapes me but it roughly translates to the Land of Lost Time because meals last hours). The name is so fitting...I believe we were there at 8 and left sometime after 11, eating and drinking the whole time. This place is so small that we had to knock on the door to get let inside. There were about five tables, two women running the entire operation, and a very very small kitchen! The meal was so delicious: bread with truffle sauce, fried mozzarella, grilled eggplant, pesto pasta with shrimp, gorgonzola and walnut pasta, spinach gnocchi, panna cotta, nutella crepes, etc. All for 13 euro each! We were up late that night, but it was a lot of fun being reunited with friends!
Saturday was all about chocolate! Late morning we headed to the town center where all the festivities were taking place. First thing Sarah and I got hot chocolate. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before but hot chocolate here more resembles hot pudding then a beverage. It is so filling. My chili hot chocolate was exceptionally good. We decided to purchase some EuroChocolate cards which would allow us to get some treats at different stations around the city. The whole city was really crowded but it was fun to just see all the chocolate delicacies they had to offer: chocolate pasta, chocolate kebabs, churros, so many different kinds of bars and so much more! We stopped at some of the stations and got some goodies but gave up after awhile because of the crowds. The best part of the chocolate festival for me was all the Mexican chocolate and coco beans that were housed in Perugia's awesome underground bus station. We sampled raw coco beans, cinnamon chocolate, and a really delicious combination of coco beans, chili powder, and lime.
Hot chocolate!
Chocolate rock climbing wall.After being gluttonous for several hours Sarah had to leave to go meet her parents back in Florence and Vanessa and I headed back to her apartment. Later on that evening, some of her friends came over and we made pasta with truffle sauce while trying to make a dent in a huge jug of wine that one of her friends brought over. They are certainly not lacking in good food in Perugia (I said this should be a food blog).
On Sunday we got up and rode the ferris wheel that had been set up for the event. Vanessa's school has midterms this week so she had to go study and I spent some time wandering around (in the rain) making a few too many chocolate purchases. I had a lot of fun this weekend! Even though we didn't get to do a lot of sight-seeing (I'm not sure how much there even is to do there) it was really nice to see the city from an insider's perspective as well as hang out with familiar faces.
View from the ferris wheel.This weekend I'm staying local because the week after that is fall break-Krakow, Budapest & Prague!
mmmmm chocolate!
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