Not Your Everyday Kind of Fair…….
Florence is in a near-constant state of Fair options….especially on weekends, when various small piazzas throughout the city become venues for artisan commerce.  One of today’s choices was a Chocolate Fair set up in the Piazza Santa Maria Novella.   We love chocolate so we wandered over to have a look.  As any chocolate lover would expect, Perugia was well-represented with a couple of large arrays of chocolate, from the standard candies that they so beautifully create to some pretty exotic examples of chocolateering-gone-wild.

Perugia Chocolate Classics
Florence Chocolate Fair, February 13, 2016

Everything you see is made of chocolate…….water faucets, hammers, nuts and bolts, wrenches, horseshoes…..

Chocolate Surprises
Florence Chocolate Fair

an unusual gift for just about every taste and since tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, business was brisk.

Chocolate Chunks, Florence Chocolate Fair, February 13, 2016

Our taste runs a bit more purist where chocolate is concerned, so we headed straight for the poured chocolate sold in chunks…..dark chocolate with nuts and white chocolate with cranberries will be heading home with us.

A real benefit for city dwellers, these Fairs bring merchants from many smaller towns in Italy and they bring their very best with them.  The merchants are always so proud of their goods (with good reason) and so happy to have a chance to experience a larger volume of sales than usual.  Talk about win-win situations!

Merchants of Chocolate
Florence Chocolate Fair