EuroChocolate

About a month ago I went to Perugia with three girlfriends for the sole purpose of eating chocolate.  Seriously.  Best idea ever, right?!  Girlfriends + chocolate - kids & hubbies = amazing 36 hours.  One of the largest chocolate festivals in Europe is held in Perugia each year...and man alive it was WORTH the four and a half hour drive!!  The city of Perugia is set up on a steep hill and they excavated under some of the ruins and built escalators from the bottom to the top of the city.  So smart...and convenient for us visitors! 

The stay started well with complimentary chocolate in our rooms...and it was perfect because I like dark and Davina (my roomie) likes milk!

After we checked in we headed up to the festival to get our chocolate tasting/buying going!  You picked up this card and went around the festival getting free samples.  

The first stop was a hot chocolate booth...and the hot chocolate was AMAZING!  It was super thick...so thick that our spoons stood up straight.  

 

We saw some chocoKebab:

A picture of the girls: Me, Davina, Christy, and Jessica.

Here's a pic to get your salivary glands going:

Here's a shot of one of the streets where the festival was held.  
 

This Pinocchio statue was in one of the shops...the sign says I don't like chocolate.  
 

 

Self group shot...my arm is just not quite long enough

We didn't see and taste just chocolate.  We also found some awesome regional cheeses:
 

 

While in Perugia, we found the ever-elusive GROM.  GROM is pretty much the. best. gelato. ever.   They make it with all natural ingredients...so it tastes exactly like what it should, no artificial berry flavors or over sweetened chocolate...just pure, natural goodness.  The closest one to us in in Rome...3.5 hours away.  Sad face. 

  Feet and gelato in Perugia.

Of course since we couldn't possibly stay only one night...so we stayed overnight and went back again the next day.   The hotel's breakfast was YUMMY...yummy...YUMMY!!!

Feet in Perugia:
 

And here's some more pics to make you jealous :)
 

After tasting a bit more chocolate we decided to head to GROM one more time. 

Here's an upclose shot of my gelato...pear and no-sugar added dark chocolate.  
 

After gelato Davina and I found a red carpet...it suited us:
 

While Davina and I were letting our inner diva's out, Christy and Jessica were stretching hip flexors.  
 

This is the dungeon where they put all the non-chocolate lovers:
 

After seeing our last little bit of chocolate we decided to head to Assisi to check out the cute town on the hill and the Cathedral of St Francis.   The St Franciscan order of monks began here...pretty cool. 


Here's a view of Assisi...sitting up on the hill. 
 

We had to park down the hill and hoof it up the the city center...definitely helped work off some of the chocolate we'd eaten. 
 

The St Francis Cathedral:
 

Us out front of the cathedral.

After the cathedral we made our way back home.  We laughed a lot, had a gas-finding adventure, discovered that gas stations in Italy serve wine, and made a vow to go back again next year!