Books & Chocolate

After a very pleasant lunch I decided to geek out at Antwerp's UNESCO World Heritage Site - the Museum Plantin Moretus, the former home and publishing house of one of the world's most prolific book printers. The tour was interesting and surprisingly hands-on - there were many very old books available to flick through including an atlas I must have spent at least half an hour perusing. The museum did a good job of explaining the significance of the printing press and its impact specifically on Moretus but also on Antwerp as a city. It even goes the two oldest printing presses in the world.

After all this intellectual nourishment I'd worked up an appetite and so the last stop on my whistle stop tour of Antwerp was Chocolate Nation.

Having previously been to the Lindt Home of Chocolate in Switzerland, I was interested to see how Europe's other great chocolatiering nation would compare. In my opinion, Belgium takes the win; since the Chocolate Nation tour in Antwerp isn't focused on a specific company, instead focusing on Antwerp's role as the largest cocoa bean port in the world, the tour was able to focus much more on the core aspects of chocolate production, with more opportunities to taste the results along the way!Read more