This Sunday we find Yle at the chocolate festival in Lecce! Almost everyone loves chocolate and now you can experience the trill through Yle's description.
You can almost smell and taste the wonderful treasures she finds at the festival....
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| Our guide, Yle |
What would life look like without chocolate?
By Ylenia Sambati
This will be a very special Sunday! Since my awaking I knew that tons of chocolate were right calling me in the main “Piazza” (Square) of Lecce, my beautiful baroque city. An event totally devoted to chocolate in any possible shape and made by artisans from all around Italy. I was excited like a little girl..chocolate is a very important part of my daily food program..every night after dinner – Love it! – I have a little “quadratino” of dark chocolate so as you can imagine this event in my town meant a lot of joy and caloric photos to me
Before heading to the
Piazza, I went to the Sunday farmer market to shop for some fresh vegetables (and balance a good salad with a big chocolate dessert). There are several Sunday farmer markets actually, it’s always up to you were to shop: a couple are in town and some others by the ocean. This time I decided to visit the one in town because I did not want to waste time and go to the choco market as soon as possible.
On my way to the Piazza, I enjoyed another delicious break with a cappuccino and a “cornetto”, just like the typical Italian breakfast usually is. It is always difficult to choose a bar for breakfast in Italy because most of the time they display irresistible things!
Because spring is not that far – despite the snow in Italy – my attention was captured by some lovely bikes on sale. We have wonderful itineraries in the countryside or by the ocean – although a bike ride amidst the Leccese baroque stone is a must - and a bike ride is always a good idea to stay fit, breath some uncontaminated air and take the chance to stop in little coloured villages. I will probably contact the number on the sign and ask the price of this old bike.
I walked to the Piazza and what my eyes saw was unbelievable: any shape and kind of chocolate with plenty of artisans asking all the same question:
“would you like to taste?"
My first (of many) stops was in front of a giant Rocher, something the kind boy cut like parmesan although it was chocolate.
Probably my enthusiasm was contagious on that shape because several people stopped and even without tasting it they just bought!
Next to me there were some Chinese tourists that I supposed were going to take hundreds of pictures, but I can honestly promise, they were more interested in tasting than anything else (so did I).
Romantic chocolate is another good excuse to eat it and choco hearts were actually all around me. Legend has that Valentine’s Day is for lovers and I always suggest to my friends to offer chocolate rather than flowers.
