The Chocolate Factory!!! (Part One)

This past weekend we went back to Cologne and were able to go to the Chocolate Factory and Museum.  It was such a fun day!!!  Cologne is much more pleasant when it's not during carnival. :)  Guess what that means?!  I will now be able to do the little *fun* something that I wanted to do a few weeks ago!!!  Stay tuned tomorrow at which time I will announce what it is (after posting Part Two of the Chocolate Factory).  In the mean time, enjoy the following pictures and learn lots about chocolate!!  There were so many pictures, I'm going to break this up into two posts...

We finally found a parking space!!

We've gotten accustomed to the fact that you don't get close parking spaces over here. :)

Daddy and us kids in front of...

...The Chocolate factory and Museum

Inside

Shenandoah enjoying her first piece of chocolate!

And we start our adventure of learning about chocolate!!...

All different people who have something to do with chocolate in one way or another

Reading about...

The cocoa plant!

(I was able to take many pictures of the different signs which were very informative! I know some of them aren't the greatest quality, but if you click on them they should blow up bigger)

What the cocoa tree looks like

The following three plaques hold some interesting facts about cocoa plants and their cultivation - be sure to blow up the pictures and read about it!!

The orange places on this map show where cocoa can be grown

The lighted areas on this globe show the same thing

Entering...

... a simulated rain forest!!

Very warm and humid :)

Do you see the little green cocoa pod growing?!

A mango tree

It was fun to look around

I think Shenandoah was fascinated too!

Pineapple!!

Papaya tree

I thought this one looked pretty neat

The bottle palm!!

Vanilla!!

It was interesting to learn about the people that grow cocoa today

Most of them are very poor and don't live in the greatest conditions

Most of them have never even tasted a bar of chocolate - the end result of their work!!

About cocoa transportation throughout the years

 

A dugout ghana that would transports the cocoa pods

Cocoa transportation now

The top consumers of chocolate and chocolate made products left to right

Some of the different spices that are used in chocolate - I can understand using most of them, but the cardamom and black pepper surprised me!! :)

Mommy reading about chocolate production

The next two plaques below give a closer look into chocolate production

These next plaques until the end of this post are all about the health benefits of chocolate - very interesting!!!  Of course it's best in it's purest form, but chocolate bars have to be good too! :)

I should have made funny faces or something in my reflection. :)

Stay tuned tomorrow for a couple great posts!!!