On the Chocolate Trail

June 22 – 23, 2007 Valencia We happened upon beautiful chocolate themed ceramics at Santa Catalina Bakery and café, where we hear they have the best chocolate cake in town—

June 21, 2007 Calatayud In Calatayud one store surprisingly features Belgian chocolate, and another shop offers delicious chocolate covered oranges plus other delicacies named for the local ancient ruin, Bilbilis. Poblet Valencia

June 20, 2007 Poblet We had read a text panel at the Barcelona Chocolate Museum explaining that chocolate arrived in Spain in 1520, one year after Cortez arrived in Mexico. A Cistercian monk, Fray Aguilar, shipped chocolate with the recipe to the Monasterio de Piedra in Aragon and possibly also to the monastery at Poblet.

June 18 – 19, 2007 Barcelona There’s a lot of chocolate here, partly because the 18th century port welcomed ships containing chocolate cargo. It therefore had and still does, chocolate factories and chocolate stores. Some of the chocolate factories do not have their own stores, such as Blanxart. Again, there are many opportunities for hot

June 17, 2007 Returning to Spain, to Girona—shucks it’s closed on Sunday: But this one’s not… We missed this one also, learning about it from The Lonely Planet: Narbonne Barcelona

June 8, 2007 More hot chocolate (or tepid pudding): as well as chcoloate, covered in the logo of the city here in the pavement:

June 7, 2007 However, in this little town with an ancient Roman fortress, for some reason, they serve hot chocolate at limited times. Segovia Bilbao

June 6 – 7, 2007 Here we enjoy our chocolate at a place that also serves teas, coffees and ice creams. Madrid Aguilar de Campóo

June 4, 2007 We start our chocolate tour of Spain with Chocolateria San Ginés in Madrid, with what Steve Reeves calls the best hot chocolate in Spain. It is extremely thick, as if drinking/eating chocolate pudding, and is not served with whipped cream. I learned, as we continued, that the Spanish often call hot chocolate

  Chocolate, Jews and Spain share a long history. Spanish royalty enjoyed the Aztec drink Spanish explorers discovered in the early 1500s. It became so popular in Spain of the 16th and 17th centuries that chocolate houses, like cafés, developed everywhere. Similar houses still exist today in most of Spain’s major cities. Spaniards guarded their