In Baci we trust

Grown men push children out of the way in order to snag a couple of free biscuits, grandparents trample tourists as they surge forward to collect miniscule sample bags of chocolate and school children aren’t afraid to kick and punch in their quest for a tiny taste of complimentary iced tea.
Welcome to Perugia’s annual Eurochocolate festival.
From October 13 to 22, the little town of Perugia is transformed into ground zero for chocolate lovers.
Or at least that’s how it used to be.
Eurochocolate is now more trade show and selling opportunity than traditional Italian food festa.
Sure, it still manages to attract some artisans and a handful of experts to talk and tempt.
But there’s really not a lot of tasting going on.
And the people manning the dozens of stalls are more likely to work for big companies like Perugina and Ferrero than the local craftsman.
It’s a big event though, only rivaled by June’s Umbria Jazz which funnels hundreds of thousands of music lovers into the city.
Eurochocolate has an extraordinary effect on tiny Perugia, swelling its 150,000 strong population to more than double on weekends and attracting in excess of a million people to its tiny main street over the weeklong festival.
Visually, it’s a spectacle to behold.
In Piazza November IV, next to the lovely Fontana Maggiore, Perugina sets up a giant walkthrough Baci, roughly the same size as the Pisano-designed fountain, while Lindt has a circus tent tendering samples to the impatiently waiting hordes of daytrippers forming five competing and disorderly queues outside.
Perugina also released a new Baci in time for this year’s Eurochocolate.
But do you think they gave any away to interested observers?
No way, they sold them in boxes of 12 for triple the price of normal Baci.
We’ll stick with the original and best thanks very much.