(Part 1 - Part 2)
Being the hometown of Perugina - arguably the best-known chocolate manufacturing company in Italy thanks to the ubiquitous Baci (the iconic Valentine's Day chocolates as far as we are concerned: hazelnut-filled pralines wrapped in a silver foil studded with tiny blue stars, with a romantic quote printed inside. They've been around for 90 years!) - Perugia is, alongside with Torino, a chocolate lover's paradise even in normal circumstances...
Being the hometown of Perugina - arguably the best-known chocolate manufacturing company in Italy thanks to the ubiquitous Baci (the iconic Valentine's Day chocolates as far as we are concerned: hazelnut-filled pralines wrapped in a silver foil studded with tiny blue stars, with a romantic quote printed inside. They've been around for 90 years!) - Perugia is, alongside with Torino, a chocolate lover's paradise even in normal circumstances...
...but over the Eurochocolate's 10-days tour de force, it turns into something so totally over-the-top as to be impossible to describe. You might think of it as a chocoholic's wet dream come true. (Can you feel the mental image burning itself into your retina? Yes? You're wecome.)
The town's main streets and central square are lined with stalls as far as the eye can see...
...selling both "novelty" items like the chocolate tools...
...and more traditional treats in the shape of truffles, pralines, cremini, and Krispie chunks.
Cremini are the proverbial feather in Italy's confectionary hat - little squares of milk and hazelnut chocolate, so incredibly smooth and creamy (this is what the name means, by the way!) as to literally melt in your mouth.
In its classical form, a cremino is teeny-tiny, but some vendors had huge ingot-like bars of it, to be cut into big cubes of yummyness...
...to be shaved into a sheet of sponge cake and topped ad libitum with caramel, chocolate or strawberry sauce.
Of course I had to try it! And it was so delicious, I actually ate it twice during my stay in Perugia...
In its classical form, a cremino is teeny-tiny, but some vendors had huge ingot-like bars of it, to be cut into big cubes of yummyness...
...and a few had come up with the ChocoKebab idea: a tall truncated cone of cremino, mounted shish kebab-like on a vertical skewer contraption...
Of course I had to try it! And it was so delicious, I actually ate it twice during my stay in Perugia...
...and I also got another favourite of mine, candy apples. The chocolate-covered ones are OK too, I guess, but the lacquered, bright red ones...
Lovely. Just lovely.
My sweetie, who isn't fond of either cremini or apples (yes, I know - ALIEN!), got chocolate-covered bananas instead, and a generous serving of this white chocolate with cranberries.
Neddless to say, both of us bought tons of stuff for our friends and colleagues as well, both of the chocolatey persuasion and otherwise. Because this part of Italy is renown for other delicacies too - such as black truffles, and awesome salami...
...and sweets. Apart from all the chocolate, I mean.
Such as the delicious panforte and buccellato (fruit cake-like confections, both of them)...
...or meringues as big as your head, if that's how you roll.
Squee!
Can you say I'm so sorry that I'm going back home tomorrow?
