One of the highlights of our visit to Umbria was touring the Perugina Casa del Cioccolato located in the Baci by Perugina factory in Perugia, Italy. This is an extraordinary place on the outskirts of Perugia where visitors can discover all there is to know and love about chocolate.
Baci (the Italian word for kisses) is one of the most popular confection companies in the world. It was purchased by Nestle in 1987, but all the candy produced by Baci is still created only in their Perugia factory, which makes a visit to this factory a unique and memorable experience.
The world famous Bacio candy was created in 1922 and, according to legend, introduced on Valentine's Day. Nearly 100 years later there are several different items in the Baci family, but the original Bacio has remained the same - A heart of gianduia (a blend of milk chocolate and ground hazelnuts), dotted with chopped hazelnuts, crowned with a whole hazelnut, covered in dark chocolate, and embraced with a love note in Italian, English, Spanish, French, and German. Among my favorite quotes was “Love can hope where reason would despair” (L’amore sa sperare quando la ragione gia dispera) - Learn more about their products here.
During the summer the factory has limited hours and only a partial tour of the factory is available because the production of the chocolate decreases during due to the heat, and their staff is reduced. This limits the tour to 1.5 hours, which is in any case plenty of time for this activity. Our family still got to see some of the factory, view two movies, and participate in a chocolate tasting (which is really the most important part anyway!). Another benefit to going during the summer is that because of the limited tour the entrance fee is reduced from 9 euro to 5 euro for adults and only 3 euro for kids (under age 5 are free). A great value for a family activity. Read more about the family chocolate factory tour here.
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