Chocolate festival

You read the title correctly. That is right, an entire festival about chocolate. Every year, Torino is the host to one of the largest chocolate festivals in the world. Consuming an entire piazza, tents selling and making chocolate spread their joys to the visitors of this wonderful event. I was lucky enough to get to go to this event multiple times so lets get going!

The first visit I had to the chocolate festival was a USAC organized trip. As we arrived at the piazza, Danielle told us that we all needed to know was these two words, “posso assagiare”. Those two words essentially translate to, “may I please have a sample pretty please”. We then split off into groups and made our way around the festival trying all sorts of chocolate. By the end, I knew that I would have to take Molly here when she arrived. So the day after we got back from Venice, we planned on heading to the chocolate festival as soon as I was done with class.

I went to class after getting in late the night before and having kebab pizza so I was still exhausted. I some how made it through the three hour class and then headed back to the apartment, excited to go to the chocolate festival. We only had two keys to the apartment so I left mine with Molly in case she or one of the girls wanted to leave to go to the market or store before I got back. I made it back and buzzed the door. I stood there for a minute, realizing that I didn’t tell the girls how to let someone in, assuming they would be able magically figure it our. Then nobody responded for a few minutes so I tried the buzzer again. I began to wonder if they were out at the store or at the market. I decided the best option would be to call Molly to figure out where they were so I could meet them wherever they were. I called Molly and there was no answer. I began to get worried and rang the buzzer a couple more times. My roommate was in class and wouldn’t be back until late so getting his key was no option. I called Molly a couple more times and finally, after about half an hour, she answered.

Turns out the girls were so exhausted from the day before that the entire trio had passed out and was still dead asleep when I got back from class (at this time, it is already well past noon). Molly let me in and got the girls up. They got ready fairly quickly and we headed out to show the girls around Torino and to get to the chocolate festival.

We first decided to show them Eataly and the Lingotto mall. Allie was looking to get a sim card so she could call her mom and they are only about 10 euros and are pretty easy to use. We made our way around Eataly, showing the girls the massive wine room, the cheese room, the prosciutto room, the pasta room, and all the other massive rooms filled with amazing Italian foods and things like that. There are more than a few people back home that I would know that would love this place. It’s like a Whole Foods but way more awesome. Eataly is a slow food restaurant so all the food is organic and held to the highest standards. It is an awesome place but is fairly expensive so I don’t make it in there too often

After showing the girls the Lingotto mall, the Olympic arch and Eataly, we made our way to the metro to get downtown. The nearest Metro stop to the chocolate festival is the Porta Nuova stop so we found ourselves with a hike all the way down Via Roma and then down Via Po. Well rested, the girls didn’t have much of a problem with that start and we began the trek down Via Roma. I had taken Molly down Via Roma when she was here last time and so the girls knew that there would be some shopping opportunities. They quickly found a conoli place and then we made it into H&M. I had never heard of the store but apparently, they are all over Europe. The girls have one in Stirling and they make all too frequent visits to it so finding one here was exciting for the girls for they all hoped to find something new and exciting.

We walked around the three story store for a long time as the girls found clothes and what not but they all seemed to be enjoying themselves so I found a place to sit outside and just enjoyed getting to relax for a minute. When the girls finally finished shopping, we made our way to the rich church and the poor church I mentioned a while back. After being in Italy this long (and I almost feel bad for saying this), they have become ‘just another church’ to me. They are still cool to see, don’t get me wrong but I hardly go out of my way to see them now. The girls, however were infatuated with the church and so we headed into the rich church.

Rich Church

Poor church, see the differences? Huge right?

From there, we made our way down to the end of Via Roma, where I showed the girls the Palazzo Madama as well as told them about the church with the real shroud of Turin as well as the one with the replica. We decided to add a detour to both of those places.

Finally, after all that walking, we made our way to the chocolate festival. The girls were quickly fading for the walking had begun to take its toll. Chocolate was just the thing the doctor ordered!

The first tent we came across was the merchandise tent. I had told molly about this chocolate lamp and she convinced me to buy it. I'm pretty sure it is the coolest lamp ever so I’ll be pretty stoked to put it to good use when I get home.

Next, we made our way into the large tent where they had carved a huge map of Italy out of chocolate and included all the major monuments and sights, from the Mole in Torino to the Campanile in Venice to the leaning tower in Pisa and so on.

From there, we walked to all the little tents, trying all the samples we could get our hands on.

I had found a chocolate that I really enjoyed last time I went and so I got Molly, Allie and Amanda to try it and Molly loved it so much, we even got a little bag worth of it. What kind of chocolate is it you ask? The chocolate was a combination of chocolate (of course) and something I haven’t had in ages, pop rocks. It was surprisingly awesome.

Though gorging oneself with chocolate sounds like a dream come true, one filled with splendor and awesomeness to the max, some ‘real’ food was in order. Acting on a tip from one of the best USAC professors, Simona Lai, I began the hunt for a place called Bianco. We walked around the south side of the piazza with no luck. I called Simona and got a better location. We set off and again, got lost. I called Simona again and got an even better description of the location. We finally got there and sat down to wait the 15 or so minutes for the place to open. We ordered our drinks and dined Aperitivo style!

When we had our fill, we headed to the river where we snapped a few night time pictures before making the trek back to the metro station to end the long day.