Warsaw opens doors to chocolate empire

For almost a century, the smell of chocolate was carried by the breeze in Warsaw's Kamionek neighborhood, rising from the imposing Wedel factory — the seat of a sweet-toothed country's most famous confectioner.

The giant white-walled plant has provided several generations of Poles with chocolate, surviving the World War II and political transformations, with its sweets over time embodying national identity. Its gates, decorated with a giant W, have been closed to the public for decades bar the odd school trip.

But this autumn, it has for the first time given a glimpse of life inside by opening its doors to house a chocolate museum.

"Fascinated by the legends" of the factory, Anna Szczepanik jumped on the occasion to visit it.

Her grandmother worked at the plant and she recalled playing with her collection of chocolate wrappers as a child.

"The history of Wedel is to some extent the story of most Varsovians," Szczepanik told AFP in the museum, as she tasted liquid chocolate poured from a tap onto a waffle.

While not being a chocolate giant like Belgium or Switzerland, Poland's Wedel brand goes back to the mid-19th century, making it ones of the oldest in the country.

"To some degree, we all in Warsaw have links to it," Szczepanik said.

Inside, visitors can peek at the production lines of Poland's most loved sweets.

Across a glass wall separating the museum from the factory, workers stir giant cauldrons of a mix that will be made into bars of "chalwa," a popular treat in Poland.

In another room, visitors can see women stacking the already made product from a conveyor belt.

As he dipped his finger in a wall of pouring chocolate, visitor Krzysztof Darewicz, who described himself as a ...