Guide to Barcelona

Barcelona loves chocolate

Thursday, 23 July 2009 10:17

In and Around Barcelona

What would become of us if we denied ourselves certain little pleasures?
Many of us are big chocolate lovers, and Barcelona has a treat in store for us, where we can see a whole world made out of cocoa: the Chocolate museum (Carrer Comerç, 36).
Here you can learn about the origins of this passionate foodstuff, how it arrived in Europe and its consequential spread.
Chocolate, situated between myth and reality, is the only star of the show in this museum. Here you can discover its medicinal and aphrodisiac properties, its nutritional value and the various methods used to make it.
Barcelona has a special historical relationship with chocolate. Its port was one of the main entry points of the product from America. It also has the oldest chocolate makers in Europe, dating back to 1777.

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The traditional love Barcelona has for chocolate shows itself in many ways, for example, Lluis Santapa created las “monas de chocolate” (chocolate sculptures) in 1947, without realising he had started one of the most characteristic activities of Catalan chocolate making of the century.
Today, these sculptures have turned into an emblematic product for Catalans.
From the week before Easer Monday, the day when parents traditionally give their children the sculptures, the chocolate shops decorate their windows with the best of the sculptures, and compete with each other to exhibit the most spectacular scultptures, which could be a chocolate model of a building, a famous person or cakes with chocolate figures.
This is all a great spectacle for passers by in the streets of Barcelona, who discover art and love in the chocolate shops.

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