Obviously Florence is beautiful. You hardly need me to tell you that! But it’s also home to an incredible annual chocolate festival that will make you abandon restraint and embrace gluttony!!!

I found out about this fiera del cioccolato by accident. I was Googling chocolate festivals in the Maremma, where I live, and was heartbroken to learn that the Grosseto festival I had loved when I first arrived in Italy was no longer on… that’s when I stumbled across Florence’s fiera.

Naturally, I was going to attend the four day event… no questions about it. I live for chocolate and this fiera promised to have only the sweetest treats from the best Italian and foreign chocolatiers… heaven!!!

So I hopped in my car and braced myself for the three hour drive to Florence… believe me, it ain’t pretty, I’ve never been car sick so bad in all my life. But I suffered for chocolate and it was worth it.

The only problem? It was pissing down with rain. Seeing as though this festival is held on Feb 4-7 each year I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but I had no umbrella and got drenched.  But again I suffered for chocolate and it was worth it.

The rows and rows of chocolate- oh indescribable. I was in ecstasy as I hopped from one stands to another, each one of them brimming with every kind of chocolate imaginable. I bought a selection of handmade chocolates filled with different flavours. I picked traditionals, you know strawberry, mint, coffee, but I also got green tea and lemon cheesecake- so good but also really pricey- I must have paid at least 10 euros for 8 chocolates!!!

Amongst the Italian-manned stalls were a few foreigners, one happened to be a very talented-looking Belgian who made the most divine white and milk chocolate seashells! Another were French, I think, and had used chocolate to make the strangest moulds of horse shoes and sections of the male anatomy.

After a least thirty laps around the stalls, I bought a delicious cup of hot chocolate, so thick you needed a spoon and perfect for the freezing winter’s day, and watched the various cooking and dessert demonstrations. I also listened to some great traditional Tuscan music and heard about the history of the cacao bean from a wise looking old man.

In all, I had a ball and the fiera was definitely worth the trip, not to mention the even more painful trip back home in the pouring rain. Plus I got to spend the weekend basking in the splendour of Tuscany, and the beautiful frescoes in Piazza Santa Croce, where the fiera del cioccolato was held.