Chocolate Festival and Lake Garda

We had seen the tents being set up for days, but it wasn't until Wednesday that we fully understood the meaning of CioccoShow - a chocolate festival in Piazza Maggiore! It certainly was glorious. There was every type of Italian chocolate imaginable, including hot chocolate. We went Wednesday afternoon before class, and then again on Saturday evening. On Wednesday it was easy to walk through the stands and see everything, but Saturday evening was worse than being on 5th Ave at Christmastime. Nevertheless, we were able to push our way through and buy chocolate! Because I know you're curious, this is what we bought over the two days we went: pepper hot chocolate and cinnamon hot chocolate, white chocolate-covered hazelnuts, dark chocolate-covered almonds, dark chocolate-covered espresso beans (these were outstanding), liquor-filled chocolates (I mean actual liquor, not liquor-flavored like we were expecting, with variations including Bailey's, Sambuca, and Rhum), a slice of fudge called Cremino which is creamy and hazelnutty, and dark chocolate Gianduiotto, that creamy hazelnut chocolate invented in Turin. (Craving chocolate yet?) We have enough chocolate to last us for at least a week...we hope!

Yesterday was our final ECCO-sponsored trip, this time for the Literature class. We went to Lake Garda, in central Northern Italy, east of Milan. We visited the estate of Gabriele d'Annunzio, a fascist poet of the early 20th century who was a very, very strange man. I'm not in the Lit class but I hear that his poetry is very egotistic and superficial. He was also very close with Mussolini, Italy's fascist dictator. Regardless, d'Annunzio lived in a beautiful region, and the views alone were amazing!

Lake Garda

First we went to a restaurant for our group lunch, and then toured d'Annunzio's estate. Apparently he was a cenophobic, which means he had a fear of empty spaces. That was certainly very apparent in his expansive house. There were no empty spaces at all. Lots of clutter and knick-knacks. He was also a hypochondriac, and if I understood our tourguide correctly, he also had a double personality: he was both very Catholic, and anti-Catholic. He had lots of Catholic paraphernalia, including a full-sized statue of a wounded Jesus and many paintings of the Madonna and Child, but he also had many statues from Eastern religion, like Buddhist and Hindu statues. The house was very dark and reminded me of the Addams Family or the Munsters...we were joking that we should have gone there for our Halloween weekend trip instead of to Turin.

And if it wasn't enough that he filled his house with unnecessary objects, d'Annunzio must have felt that the forest surrounding his house was also too empty, because he put a ship right in the middle of it, overlooking the lake. Yes, that's right, a ship. Also nearby in the surrounding forest was the mausoleum where d'Annunzio is buried.

So that was an interesting day trip. It was relatively far (about 3 hours driving) and it was freezing, but the views and the food, and even the peculiar estate, made it worth it. The next bright star on our horizon is the ECCO Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday night...at least the holiday won't be completely overlooked. Happy Thanksgiving!