BARCELONA CHOCOLATE MUSEUM

Five hundred years ago, chocolate in the form of cocoa beans first came ashore in Europe. Coming into port in Spain, Hernan Cortes and his conquistadors brought the spiced treat with them after pillaging the Mayan and Aztec empires of Central America, where cocoa beans had been used to create chocolate variants for over 3,000 years.

In honor of this trans-Atlantic transfer, the Barcelona Confectionery Guild has set up the Chocolate Museum to tell the story of chocolate and its modernization. By using the statues to visibly depict modern chocolate innovation, the arc of the history of chocolate feels fairly complete.