Eurochocolate

After some idle searching online last weekend, trying to figure out what to do with my free day, I stumbled upon a most miraculous discovery: Eurochocolate. The international festival of chocolate was going on in Perugia, no more than twenty minutes and €5 away. I was ridiculously excited- I ran upstairs to K2’s room and announced that we were going, and that was all there was to it. Unfortunately, the rest of our group caught wind of our plan that night at dinner, and I became an unwitting tour guide to ten of us. We left early in the morning, purposely not waiting for the late-sleepers, and caught the bus down to the train station in Santa Maria degli Angeli. There was momentary panic when the ticket office was closed until 1PM, but we soon found the coffee shop in the train station, where you could also buy local tickets. We’d all just gotten our tickets when the train pulled up- after another brief panic during our ride when we realized we were in the region of Perugia, so that every stop was marked “Perugia”, we managed to find the right stop. It was the one everyone got off at. Then we had to walk up the hill to the historic center of town, which turned out to be very long, very uphill, and disconcertingly empty. Right when we were beginning to doubt the very existence of the chocolate festival, we rounded a curve to the “pedestrian ascension” (that was my best translation of the sign) and were met by hundreds and hundreds of people piling off buses and smashing onto a narrow escalator that lead up, directly into the hill. We followed, all our excitement regained, and squeezed onto the escalator. As we found out, Perugia has a large area of ancient buildings that are now completely underground: this is, technically, historic downtown. Once we got to the top, we followed the crowd through underground streets, in and out of the buildings that held exhibits of chocolate from different countries and regions, then to exhibits of wines and olive oils and breads, all boasting many regional specialties only found here, and of course, paired with chocolate. As amazing as the underground city was, I don’t think I could’ve spent more than an hour stuck in the crowds without becoming extremely claustrophobic. We made it to the end of the main street, and began another long escalator ride to the surface. The surface main street, although at least in the open air, was also packed twice as full with people than was the underground city: this was the commercial vendor section, where you could buy chocolate from almost any chocolate company in Europe, and certainly any from Italy. There were booths for Italian hot chocolate (which is what an American would liken to half-set pudding) in any flavor and darkness you desire (I recommend dark chocolate and rum); there were many booths for Perugina, Lindt, and Toblerone; and what seemed like a hundred other small artisan chocolate companies, selling chocolate bars with Highland Whiskey and hot peppers, or black currant and tea. We bumped into a man dressed as a giant chocolate ravioli, who gave us cards and directed us towards the theater for free samples- a chocolate demonstration was going on inside the theater, the chef babbling in fast Italian as he made chocolate truffle molds and tempered dark chocolate. We found the table handing out a chocolate ravioli to anyone with a card from the ravioli man- it was served with dark chocolate and white chocolate sauce, atop a tiny cube of yellow cake, and was filled with Gianduja (a European staple, chocolate made with 30% hazelnut paste). Inside the theater were the really expensive chocolate companies, the ones who made things like chocolate ravioli, and chocolate dessert sushi, and chocolate cordials filled with expensive wines and tartufo (the mushroom kind of truffle). I could’ve spent $100 on just a sampling of that room. After our rendezvous with the ravioli man, we began to explore the possibility of other free samples: we had each purchased a “chococard”, a basic guide and map of the festival that also gave you discounts at most of the booths, and included free samples from certain places, if you could hunt them down. Having the card that got you the free sample was one thing, but actually getting to the booth giving out the free sample was something completely different. Italians don’t do orderly lines, even when there’s no hurry whatsoever. When free chocolate is at stake, and there’s a possibility of them running out, Italians will do whatever it takes to be at the front of the line. Booths began giving out the chococard samples at certain times: if you were lucky enough to be in front when they opened, you had a chance of surviving with your dignity. If not, it was a free-for-all, and you had to elbow your way through the crowd, holding tightly to your bag and trying to keep people from cutting around you, without getting yourself squashed or elbowed in the eye. Once you got to the front and had your sample in hand (a large chocolate bar, or a tiny bottle of coffee liquor), you were so packed in that there was no hope of getting out. People were happy to take your place, but not so happy to try to move over to let you out- this is where strong elbows and an abandonment of all personal space came in handy. At one point, I think I could’ve actually lifted both feet off the ground and still remained in place- that is, if someone had not been standing on my toes. After about four hours of wandering and crowd-fighting, we were all worn out and wanted to be away from people, and were ready to forget about whatever places we had yet to see. We managed to hit every place with chococard samples, and came home with three chocolate bars (one of them a chocolate road map of Perugia), a bottle of coffee liquor, a small bag full of mini dark chocolate bars, a cup of hot chocolate, a cordial cherry, a Lindt truffle, and a small envelope of chocolate-scented bath bubbles. We also all went home with a new appreciation of the quiet, polite uneventfulness of Assisi. The crowds where worth it for the chocolate, but both are things that should be taken only in small doses.