Cologne, Germany - Part 2 of 3 - Dano Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Sunday, March 8th, 2020

Ever wonder how chocolate is made?  Cologne has a great chocolate factory and museum all in one!  I took a bus then a tram then another bus down to the waterfront on the Rhine river on a nice sunny day.  The Schokoladen (chocolate) factory and museum was opened in 1993 on the site of the old Customs building, with two modern glass structures encompassing it on both ends.

I paid the $11 entrance fee and was immediately handed several bars of chocolate.  Woohoo!!  You can take guided tours, but I opted to go on my own which was easy as the museum is designed to take you step by step from beginning to end.  I found the entire interactive tour to be very educating.

At the start, you learn where cocoa beans are grown (typically hot/humid regions) such as Ecuador, Brazil, Africa, Mexico.   As you'll see in the photos, the large cocoa pods aren't grown on branches of the cocoa (or cacao) tree....they cling to the trunk!   Inside the pods are the beans which are taken out, fermented (about 1 week) and dried (another 1-2 weeks).  I remember, when I lived in Ecuador, I saw areas where they laid the cocoa beans out on the shoulder of a road, perfectly raked, to dry them from the heat of the asphalt and hot sun.  The entire process from harvesting, drying, and shipping is VERY labor intensive until it arrives at factories where machines take over the roasting, grinding, blending, etc into the final product.

Ready to go inside?

In one of the photo exhibits it shows how the Rhine river rose and temporarily turned the museum into an island 2 years after it opened!

A climate-controled tropical greenhouse showcases plants grown in the regions where cocoa trees grow.
No, those are not cocoa beans...they're papayas!!

THESE are cocoa bean pods!!

After I went through the exhibits showing the history, harvesting, and shipping of the beans, I entered the manufacturing section.  Machines were numbered so you could follow each step of the process to the finished product.

#1 - the roasting machine.

After being roasted and ground, the 'liquor' is mixed by horizontal rotating blades.

Watch this video and you'll get to experience the entire automated process of making a chocolate bar!

The bridge that gives you access to the 'island' where the factory and Olympic museum are located.

Statue of St Nicholas outside the chocolate factory.

By the time I left the chocolate factory/museum it had turned cold and rainy so I headed back to my apartment.  I had noticed a large 'park' near the bus stop so I decided to walk over and see what was what.  Turned out to be a cemetery.  That wasn't so surprising but what fascinated me is it wasn't like any other cemetery I'd ever been in before.  This one was forested like a full-on natural park.

I was intrigued by how intricately landscaped many of the graves were.  

These trees were probably just sapplings when this cemetery was created in the 1940's.

As I walked about, I stumbled upon a large area lined with identical crosses much like a military burial area.  Upon closer examination of many, I realized these were gravesites of common people who lost their lives in WWII....the death years were over and over again....1944 and 1945.  It was heartbreaking to see how young they were when they were killed.

Peter - 17 years old

Heinrich - 12 years old

Hermann - 12 years old

....and on that somber note.....

Next up!!

A train trip to a Castle on a hill above the Rhine!!

Stay Tuned!!

Dano

By the way, if you're interested in viewing any of my past entries about travelling around Europe and where I live in Mallorca, simply scroll down past my signature to the end.  There, you'll see 'Blog History'.  You can click on any Month/Year to see the titles I published at that time.  Simply click on the title you're interested in and it will take you to that page.