Cioccolato!

Last month we took a day trip to Perugia, Italy for the annual EuroChocolate festival held there. EuroChocolate is one of the biggest chocolate festivals in Europe and draws a crowd of almost a million visitors every year, so anyone who knows how I feel about chocolate can imagine how excited I was.

Perugia was about a 2 hour bus ride away and we got a ChocoCard through the travel program we went with which got us all kinds of tasty free samples. I basically learned you can make just about anything from chocolate, from the surprisingly delicious (pepper flavored chocolate) to the sort-of disgusting (chocolate and pear juice) to the downright ridiculous (chocolate batteries??).

Chocolate liqueur shots.

Posing with Mr. EuroChocolate

The BEST hot chocolate I've ever had. Nothing like American hot chocolate, so rich, thick and creamy it basically just tastes like a melted chocolate bar.

Yep... 32 flavors.

Chocolate kebabs!

Chocolate for dogs

Hot chocolate, anyone?

Mmm.. chocolate covered candied oranges. Probably my favorite thing I got.

Lindt!

Kappa keys

Adventure sports for the chocolate enthusiast--a chocolate rock wall.

CROATIA!

So I can definitely conclude that I will never blog for a living since I’m just now writing about the Croatia trip I took almost a month and a half ago. Sorry mom. Anyway, for this trip I was deciding between going to Greece and Croatia and ultimately picked Croatia because a) I think it’s a lot more likely I’ll go to Greece when I return to Europe in the future and b) I just really wanted to be able to say I went to Croatia for the weekend. So… Split, Croatia it was.

Croatian coast... Only a 5 minute walk from our hostel

We stayed at the Goli & Bossi hostel which was entirely neon yellow on the inside and filled with poorly translated and factually-suspect tidbits about Croatian history. Best one? “First man on moon was of Croatia… I am sure of it.” But hey, they gave us free breakfast every morning so they can make as many false claims about Croatian historical achievements as they want in my book.

So. Much. Yellow.

We spent Friday exploring Split, went to the top of the Bell Tower of St. Duje, wandered around a seafood market and fruit market, and hiked up a hill with a great view of the city.

From the Bell Tower of St. Duje

Diocletian Palace

View from the top of the bell tower

Croatian Kitties!

It was just a tiny bit windy on the way up the mountain

Once we got to the top of the mountain we saw there was a zoo! So we pretty much had to go. Unfortunately, this was probably the sketchiest zoo I’ve ever been to.. and that’s coming from someone who has spent a good amount of time at the Park Street Art & Wine Fair petting zoo. (Alameda shoutout). Not only did the bears have a miniscule, barren cage… but there was a GUINEA PIG with a cage over 2/3rds the size of the bear’s. There was also a monkey snacking on a plastic cup. All in all, PETA would have hated this place.

World's most depressed monkey

Cages optional

Depressing...

The seafood in Split was delicious. One of the best things about Croatia was how much cheaper everything was than in Florence. For an amazing seafood dinner for about ten of us our total was only 600 Kuna (Croatian currency) which sounds like a ridiculous amount but is actually only around 80 Euro.

Shrimp Risotto 

Seafood Linguini

Saturday we spent the first half of the day in Krka National Park (Croatians aren't big on vowels), a gorgeous park filled with waterfalls and rivers that reminded me a lot of Yosemite.

We bought some candied almonds from this lady... delish

Hiking in Krka!

We ended the day with a trip to the tiny island of Trogir, where we wandered around and got pastries at a delicious bakery (which the lady described in her broken English as "cheesy salty cakes"... so we obviously had to get two), plus watched one of the prettiest sunsets I've ever seen. 

Trogir harbor

Sunset in Trogir.. pictures don't do it justice

Day Trippin'

I never blogged about the day trips I’ve taken this past month to San Gimignano, Siena, and Cinque Terre so this blog post is going to be a conglomeration (Bri’s favorite word) of the three. 

San Gimignano:

We took a day trip to San Gimignano and Siena through our program. San Gimignano is a little medieval walled city in Tuscany. Most of the towers that stood in Tuscany during medieval times were torn down because nobles were using them for warfare, but San Gimignano actually still has 14 of its original towers. We paid 5 euro to climb the tallest one and the view was without a doubt worth it.

View from the top of the tower

Town center of San Gimignano as seen from the top of the tower

The entire countryside was gorgeous- With Bri in San Gimignano

Bri, Me, Liz, Juliana, Sedona, and Kate in San Gimignano

I felt like I was in the Sound of Music (I know that's in Austria--I just really had the urge to run around and sing on the hills)

 We had also heard that San Gimignano was home to the gelateria that had won the World’s Best Gelato competition so obviously that was very high on my priority list. It may have only been 11 am but I got three flavors (I make no apologies): nocciola (hazelnut), caramello, and menta (mint). The nocciola had roasted hazelnuts and nutella drizzled in it and the mint flavor tasted nothing like mint ice cream at home—I literally felt like I was eating a mint plant. All three flavors were phenomenal and I’m going to go ahead and say that the title of World’s Best Gelato was completely deserved.

Caramello, Nocciola, e Menta

Out the door line for the world's best gelato

Siena:
After a few hours in San Gimignano we had basically seen the whole town (it's very small) and headed by bus to Siena. We got a tour of Siena's cathedral and the Palazzo Pubblico (town hall) and since Siena and Florence are rivals our tour guide basically trash-talked Florence the entire time... awkward. I don't really know how to describe the appearance of Siena other than it was very... red. Almost every road and building is basically the same hue of dusty brick red. It was a beautiful city but I can't picture myself living there.

Siena Cathedral

Bri and I missed the memo about having our shoulders covered and had to be those Americans with the temporary shrouds... Embarrassing.

Ceiling of the Piccolomini Library, my favorite room in the cathedral. It was filled with beautiful handcrafted psalters and choir books from the 1400's.

My favorite thing we learned about Siena was the Palio di Siena, a biannual horse race in the town square that started in 1656. There are 17 contrade (districts) in Siena and 10 are randomly selected each race to nominate a jockey. All over the city you can tell which Contrada you are in by the flags decorating the buildings. Apparently the Oca (goose) Contrada has been the most successful in the past ten years. I decided I would be a member of the Leocorno (unicorn) contrada. When we asked our tour guide which contrada she belonged to and if they had won recently she sadly told us she was a member of the Chiocciola (snail) Contrada and they hadn't won since 1999. All in all, we had a very awkward relationship with our tour guide.

Palazzo Publico and square where the Palio di Siena is held. 

In the Aquila (eagle) Contrada

Loved the fountains everywhere where you can get icy cold, clean water for free. Especially since water isn't free at any restaurants in Europe.

Cinque Terre:
My favorite day trip by far was the trip I took with Bri, Sedona, and Liz last weekend to Cinque Terre. Bri and I stumbled out of the door after a late night at 6:45 AM and I was hopelessly grumpy the entire train ride but the second I stepped off the train I was so happy she dragged me out of bed. Hands down the most beautiful place I have been so far, Cinque Terre translates to "Five Lands" and is an area of the coast of the Italian Riviera comprised of five small villages where you can swim, hike, and sail. I don't think words can come anywhere near to doing it justice so here are some pictures from the day:

Instantly ecstatic to be in Cinque Terre. 

The "Five Lands": Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso.

Hiking between towns- Bri and I were both sporting Kappa gear and got approached by a friendly old lady who was a Kappa from Texas! 

There was a landslide between two of the towns so we had to take a tram to get past it. Here's the breathtaking view from the train window. 

I'd read that Cinque Terre was known for its pesto so getting some was a top priority... delicious.

Everyone made fun of me but there were stray cats everywhere and I insisted on taking approximately a million pictures of them. Here's one of the scragglier looking cats we saw. 

We got invited to play volleyball with some Italians who told us, among other things, that their favorite place in California was Death Valley.... oookay.

Beach in Monterosso- the water was so salty you could lay on your back and effortlessly float for hours--so I did.