For those with a sweet tooth, who also love travel, what could be better than visiting a chocolate museum? At these three recently launched or upcoming dessert museums, you’re guaranteed a sugar high! From factories to theme parks, live your own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory experience.
1. The Lindt Home of Chocolate | Switzerland
If you ever watched “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” lamenting that such a magical place didn’t exist, get ready for a pleasant surprise. On September 13, 2020, the Lindt Home of Chocolate opened in Zurich, and while it may not have everlasting gobstoppers, it’s still pure paradise for anyone with a sweet tooth.
The Lindt Home of Chocolate takes guests on a journey with an interactive museum bringing them through “seven chocolate worlds.” From cultivation to production, the cocoa bean that gifts the world with chocolate is the star of the story. The exhibits will also teach visitors about the history of Swiss chocolate making, teaching them not only about Lindt, but also about its famous predecessors.
The Home of Chocolate also features several other attractions to keep chocolate lovers busy. At the Lindt Chocolateria, for example, guests can create their own tasty confections during a chocolate-making class, while the research facility allows an inside look at the Lindt production process. The Praline Tasting Room is also a must, and a Lindt cafe is available to cleanse the palate and refuel for more exploring.
Unlike at Willy Wonka’s factory, guests here are encouraged to take candy home, and it’s easy, too, considering that the building also houses the world’s largest Lindt chocolate shop. While the maze of white, milk, and dark chocolates is impressive, the Lindt Home of Chocolate also boasts another record: the world’s largest chocolate fountain. Standing at about 30 feet tall, this show-stopping fountain beats out the previous record holder by just a few feet. It’s also the centerpiece greeting guests at the entrance, setting the tone for the chocolaty experience ahead.
The Lindt & Sprüngli factory has sat in Kilchberg, Zurich, since 1899. The Lindt Home of Chocolate—a project seven years in the making—was designed to perfectly complement that historic building and serve as a beacon to chocolate lovers everywhere.
For a video tour of the Lindt Home of Chocolate, check out the video below, and for more information, visit the official Lindt website here.
2. Sweet Space Museum | Spain
Sweet Space Museum was launched in Madrid in November 2020.
The new candy land includes nine rooms, which curators have promised to change regularly to keep the surprises fresh for visitors. Key features are a candy floss forest, sugar cloud walls and a lollipop waterfall. Visitors will no doubt feel fully immersed into a world of pure imagination which would give Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory a run for his money.
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The new exhibits have been spectacularly designed by some of Spain’s leading artists, including Okuda San Miguel, Antonyo Marest and Christian Escribá.
Interactive experiences will also be on offer, where visitors can smell, touch, and taste a varied selection of delicious treats, as well as an ice cream lab ran by Madrid’s dessert masters Toto.
A representative for the new museum said: “Sweet Space is an interactive tasting adventure that will delight those with a sweet tooth, as a unique space full of innovative experiences and lots of fun, where a connection is generated through taste, imagination and creativity.”
Sweet Space Museum is located in Madrid’s ABC Serrano Shopping Centre bookings can now be made online.
3. Tony’s Chocolonely’ Chocolate Factory-Cum-Theme Park | Netherlands
A sprawling chocolate factory-cum-theme park is coming to the Netherlands – and happily for sweet-toothed kids and adults alike, you won’t need a Willy Wonka-style golden ticket to get inside.
The country’s most popular chocolate brand, Tony’s Chocolonely, recently released a rendering for the ‘candy complex’ it intends to build in Zaandam, a small city on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Taking inspiration from the otherworldly candy boats and Great Glass Elevator in Roald Dahl’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, Tony’s Chocolonely Chocolate Circus will include a full-size roller coaster looping through its main building.
In the blueprint by Dutch architects SeARCH, the factory appears to comprise a converted red-brick warehouse, a red pavilion for the roller coaster, and a new-build factory space. Tony’s hopes the complex will be open by 2024 and says it will cost around €100 million (£89 million, $115 million, A$162 million) to build.
When it first announced plans for the factory back in 2018, the firm in a statement that it would offer ‘a total experience, where you can learn and experience everything about chocolate, the problems in the cocoa industry and what Tony’s Chocolonely does about it’. As part of its ‘recipe for slave-free cocoa’, Tony’s says it pays farmers a living wage and uses ‘bean tracker’ technology to ensure supply chains are 100 percent traceable.
The company added that it would relocate its main offices to the new site, and that there would also be a large shop and restaurant. If all goes to plan, the firm hopes to welcome some 500,000 visitors a year inside to sample its scrumdiddlyumptious goods.
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