Chocolate Museums of Europe
ABOVE: Chocolate shop in Salzburg, Austria.
When I die," I
said to my friend, "I'm not going to be embalmed. I'm going to be
dipped."
"Milk chocolate or bittersweet?" was her immediate
concern.
Adrianne Marcus
"Confessions of a Chocolate Addict"
The Chocolate Bible
Like the author of The Chocolate
Bible, I've been a fan of European chocolate for most of my life. In fact,
the title of a novel that I wrote back in 1981--Bittersweet in Bern--was
inspired by sharing a Toblerone bar with my wife on a park bench across the
street from the Tobler factory in Bern, Switzerland. (The paperback romance is
long gone from U.S. and British bookstores, but its French edition continues to
attract readers.)
Chocolate is the perfect accompaniment to travel. Adrianne Marcus explains
why in her book:
Cortez...told [Spaniards] what the Aztecs knew and believed,
that drinking a cup of this beverage daily conferred upon the consumers great
quantities of energy. According to written records, Montezuma always drank a
full goblet of chocolate prior to entering his herem. He was known to drink
fifty or so portions of this beverage daily.
Modern science would, in time, add proof to what the Aztecs
knew and practiced. Chocolate does confer energy. Its active ingredients are
caffeine and theobromine. Both exert a stimulant effect on the central nervous
system.
What could make more sense than using chocolate as a restorative after hours
of touring cathedrals and trudging through museums? For that matter, why not
make chocolate the focus of your travel, at least some of the time? That's easy
to do in Europe, where chocolate exhibits and confectionary shops tempt the
visitor at every turn. For a delicious sampling of chocolate museums and theme
parks in Europe, see pages 2 and 3.
Next Page > Chocolate
museums > Page 1, 2, 3
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