After reading about the Perusia Chocolate Festival trip in Bus2Alp’s trip options, I knew I would do what it took to get there. So clearly, I booked it. The city is located in the region of Umbria, with is southeast of Tuscany and has a similar characteristic to many hill-top Tuscan towns that I have visited.
They are all ridiculously beautiful.
It’s almost a joke. I mean, look at that…
So before we arrived in chocolate heaven, Jessica and I took some time to snap a few pics and bask in the absolutely beautiful weather.
And I wore polka dot pants, which pretty much made my whole day ten times better.
So, we arrived to the top of Perusia, where there were white tents strewn across the streets of the city, each offering their own choco-fantasy.
White chocolate and coconut truffles…
Truffles with Hazelnuts.
Boulder-like truffles with fondant and coffee.
Chocolate kebobs.
No joke.
This was real.
Banana chocolate.
I treated myself to strawberry and banana white chocolate.
And lets just say that the strawberry one is no longer with us.
We got free “hot chocolate”
Which was code for melted chocolate in a cup.
We got to watch churro masters at work.
And then, of course, drizzle them with chocolate.
And…I became distracted, which is something that often occurs in my own little world.
Balloons. Lot’s of balloons.
And I wanted one real bad.
So, I skipped over to the balloon man, and bought myself a horsey.
And I giggled like a small child.
But not everyone understood my youthful excitement over something so simply brilliant.
Like this girl, who mentally told me to get a life (I think that’s what she wanted to say).
And this lady, who was like…”shhheesh…those Americans.”
But, none of it mattered. I was having a moment with my horse and loving every second of it.
Oh, don’t worry, Jessica got one to.
But something other than the unfortunately hilarious placement of the string on the horsey happened to us. When the man tied our balloons to our wrists, I had my backpack on and Jessica had one of her purse straps on, one strap across her shoulder.I couldn’t really take my bag off and Jessica couldn’t really put her bag back on or take it off.
It was pretty darn funny. And what else was funny is the fact that our horsies were very hard to maneuver throughout the streets with crowded people. So, lots of innocent people got very up close and personal with our horsies. Like the man in the grocery store who rang me out, or the guy next to me in the mini-metro leaving Perusia, or the guy that got beat in the head with Jessica’s horse and never saw it coming.
But after we were intelligent enough to successfully manipulate the balloon-beating situation, we decided to reward ourselves with some chocolate, because that seemed to be the theme of the day. We found a stand with a white chocolate covered plum cake (an Italian moist yellow cake that coincidentally is NOT made with plums).
Oh my vanderbilt.
This was a top 10 for me.
I mean there was cake.
And then there was white chocolate.
And then there were chocolate jimmies.
IT JUST MAKES PERFECT SENSE!
It was so good.
Like it was SO good.
Like it was so so so so so so stinking good.
And it came from a place with the name of Mela, which has locations only in Umbria.
And that…that means that I will just be coming back.
Because I travel for cake.
And when I thought my life couldn’t get any better (considering the cake on a stick and balloon experiences I had previously taking part in) , I untwisted the most brilliant combination of chocolate and coconut that I have ever encountered. It was a coconut cream filled Lindt milk chocolate ball and let me tell you something.
America got nothin’ on this stuff.
I was on the bus and my emotions got the best of me. As I was mumbling something that sounded as if I was speaking in tongues, the Bus2Alps leader looked back at me and wondered if I was having an seizure.
I assured him that my outbursts were normal and there were no possible measures that could be taken to avoid them.
And when I came to the realization that giving my horse to a small Italian child would be a random act of kindness, I didn’t take note that Italian children don’t like horsey balloons or having fun.
I mean, I literally asked 4 kids if they wanted my balloon and they actually shook their head no.
I even told them it was free.
I mean, am I that intimidating?
I’m a bow in the hair, polka-dot pant wearing American girl with a horsey balloon, what about that is frightening?
Italian children…maybe they just don’t think balloons are as cool as 21 year old American girls do(and 27 year old Australia girls).
So, I brought Roberto home with me.
And I let him have a rest in the overhead compartment as we made our journey back home. And sadly, this picture sums up Jessica and I’s day absolutely perfectly. And our day, it WAS perfect. There were no checklists, no things that we needed to accomplish, and we had time to just wander and bask in a beautiful sun-filled day.
I felt liberated by the fact that we weren’t surrounded by Americans and that I was able to use the little bit of Italian that I have been slowly developing. Oh, it gave me such a renewed desire to learn more. It was just what I needed. Exactly what I needed.
And if things couldn’t get any better, we found this expansive area overlooking hundreds of acres of Italian countryside And not just that, there were huge white comfy leather-feeling oversize chairs for people to relax on. And relax, we did.
Roberto relaxed with us.
Ciao for now!