MetropolitHan: Not London! Köln Schokoladenmuseum

This place is about 10% of the reason you should visit Cologne. It is, of course, the Chocolate Museum.

It's apparently one of the ten most visited museums in Germany.

YEEEEEEAH

I love Germany. One day I'll go to the Ritter factory place in Waldenbuch and I will buy so much chocolate in the factory shop I'll collapse under the weight of it. Oh yes.

ANYWAY, enough about places I haven't been (do Milka have a factory/museum? Must investigate). The museum is on a little man-made island thing on the Rhein, about ten minutes' walk from the Cathedral. According to Google Maps, it's on the same island as the German Sport and Olympia Museum, which might have been quite interesting had I known about it. Although not as interesting as the Chocolate Museum, CLEARLY. Let's not be silly.

So, anyway, you go in and unlike some chocolate-based attractions (coughCadburyWorldcough), it's a proper museum rather than some 'experience' thing (on the other hand you get more free chocolate at Cadbury World). So there are displays in English and German telling you the history of cocoa growing and chocolate, and some interactive displays about how and where cocoa grows etc etc. It's pretty interesting but tbf if you're obsessed with chocolate as I am you probably know some of it already.

You then walk through to the awesome bit, which is the bit with the chocolate machines. Some displays ones, some working a little production line - you can see how the whole process works. It's pretty cool, especially the machine that picks the pieces up with a vaccum and for some reason just turns round and deposits them on a different conveyor belt:

Not sure what that's doing tbh but it looks fun.

And there's a the wrapping machine, although you obviously can't see the actual wrapping as it's going so fast:

Upstairs there's a machine slooooowly spinning chocolate in moulds to make sure it distributes evenly:

There's also a section about the development of chocolate from a luxury drink to a mass-produced product, including some rather lovely chocolate pots:

And then the awesome advertising area, with a) a big Milka cow, b) a load of Kinder wrapping/toys and c) a load of Ritter bars.

Cow:

KitKat bench:

Lindt poster things (think these are enamel):

After the modern stuff, you walk through to some of the older adverts and the Stollwerck vending machines that used to be all over Germany. These used to be advertising with sample sizes of bars (note to chocolate manufacturers: bring this back please) but they became incredibly popular and could come in all shapes and sizes, including for some reason as a chicken: