Posts Tagged Colonnata
Vespatour 2006 Part 5: from Monterosso to Colonnata
Every time I look at the photos of the Vespatour I feel better!
It may be due to the spring or to the fact I’m finally riding my Vespa back again after the three weeks of the exhibition at the Iper of Grandate. 🙂
Being able to view the places I visited thanks to Google maps, so that I can geo-localize each photo, gave me a different perspective on what I’ve seen riding around Italy.
The fifth gallery of the tour is now online: from Monterosso al Mare in the Cinque Terre to Marina di Massa and Colonnata, where I discovered the delicious Cioccolardini.
In the meantime the exhibition at the Iper is over. On last saturday the mall director gave the Vespa Club Como a plate to celebrate the event.
Enjoy the photos… and the chocolate! 😉
The Delicious Cioccolardini
It’s incredible but even Google doesn’t know it!
If you search for the word cioccolardini, the result, at least until now, is that it suggests searching for cioccolatini (chocolates). However, the Cioccolardini do exist!
I discovered them last summer during the Vespatour, my solo-journey around Italy riding a Vespa, while I was visiting lard shops in Colonnata, a little tuscan town at the center of the quarry caves area, renowned for its delicious lard, maturated inside tubs made of a particular variety of marble.
In one of the lard shops a kind tuscan sir let me taste some lard and while I was concerned about the fact that I couldn’t take away some of it, since I couldn’t properly preserve it until I got home, I noticed the chocolates. They’re made with fondant chocolate, honey, hazel paste and that touch of lard making them a real treat. 😮
So delicious that I ate a whole box just before leaving Colonnata while I was seating near my Vespa in the small town square.
I promised myself to order some of them for relatives and friends, so what could be the best time than Christmas to share a bit of sweetness in a season that seems to have lost its magic, that of the present given for the pleasure to give and not for convenience, habit or profit?
I ordered so many boxes to be able to make happy my dearest friends, using for some of them a Christmas card of Il Sole on which I wrote an aphorism accurately chosen for the receiver. The result has been great! 😀
I think the people at La Marmifera, the lard shop where I discovered the Cioccolardini, will be glad for the free promotion, they earned it.
Hurrah for the Cioccolardini even Google didn’t know! 😉