Easter choc-off: Belgium v Switzerland

By Amy Cooper

I'm claiming sweet victory for Belgium right up front in this Easter choc-off because Mal, representing Switzerland, must remain neutral - much like the flavours of Swiss chocolate. You can't beat their watches, their Matterhorn is majestic, Swiss cheese has holes in all the right places - but the choc? Meh. Bean there, done that. If you're looking for the world's confectionary capital, Belgium is boss.

First, there's the taste. Milky, mild Swiss chocolate just can't compete with the deep, bitter intensity of its cocoa-rich Belgian counterpart. The signature of a fine Belgian chocolatier is 100 per cent cocoa butter, mostly with super-premium beans and family recipes up to 400 years old. Chocoholic Belgians are the greatest ambassadors for their product, too, getting high on their own supply to the tune of six kilos per person every year.

They invented the praline by serendipitous mistake, when 19th-century Brussels pharmacist Jean Neuhaus coated his medicines in chocolate to improve the taste, then realised they'd be perfect if you removed the medicine entirely and replaced it with ... more chocolate. That's the sort of backstory that makes me crave an Easter in this choc-topia of more than 2100 chocolatiers, from biggies like Godiva, Leonidas and Callebaut to little family artisans making choc swans, shells, drinks and macarons all over the Flanders (north) and Wallonian (south) map.

Need a cultural justification for your decadence road-trip? Antwerp's Chocolate Nation is the self-proclaimed largest Belgian chocolate museum in the world, with 14 themed rooms of chocolate history. At the Choco-Story museums in Brussels and Bruges, you can chart chocolate's first journey to Europe and watch a praline-maker at work. Make your own at chocolate workshops with masters like Chocolaterie Van Hoorebeke in Ghent and Jean-Philippe Darcis in Verviers, or take a chocolate walking tour in Brussels past the Grand-Place, tasting your way around Godiva, Elisabeth Chocolatier, Wittamer and more.

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For the benefit of the health police, let me be clear: it would be grossly irresponsible to travel to Belgium for chocolate alone. Be sure to include the country's other two main food groups: beer and frites. And for bonus nutrition, add some mussels and waffles, too.

It takes the genius of Hercule Poirot to form a national identity around bar fare and candy. But the Belgians are famously inventive. This is the land of Asterix, the Smurfs, and the Peeing Boy statue, a urinating Brussels bronze with 1000 different outfits. If you want your choc with a side of quirky humour, Belgium's your sweet spot. With apologies to the (b)land of fondue and Federer, you'd have to be a few Lindt balls short of a packet to spend your epicurean Easter anywhere but Belgium.

By Mal Chenu

If you are munching milk chocolate Easter eggs while reading Explore, you can thank Swiss chocolatiers Daniel Peter, Henri Nestle and Rodolphe Lindt. They're the champion chocolatiers who created the processes that refined the product we love and are fattened by today.

You can't be neutral about Swiss chocolate. It's creamier, smoother, sweeter and meltier in your mouth than the Belgian imitators. The chockie treat most associated with travel - the mighty Toblerone - was invented in 1908 by another Swiss visionary, Theodore Tobler. Anticipating the enormous future demand of travellers needing to find something last-minute at the airport duty-free for their loved ones, Theo added nougat, almonds and honey to milk chocolate, moulded the sweet concoction into its trademark triangular prism, and enabled weary, neglectful commuters all over the world to return home with a half-arsed gift, instead of nothing at all.

(Why Toblerones are only a thing at airports and at Christmas remains one of the great unsolved anthropological mysteries).

Chocolate is a national cultural asset in Switzerland. The Swiss lead the world in chocolate consumption, gobbling down nine kilograms a year each, and export 120,000 tonnes annually, worth more than a billion Aussie dollars.

They know how to show it off, too. The Swiss chocolate factories make Willy Wonka look like a wimp. The Lindt Home of Chocolate in Kilchberg is just a short train ride from Zurich. The train, unsurprisingly, arrives right on time, meaning you will have just long enough to learn the original name of the company: Aktiengesellschaft Vereinigte Berner und Zurcher Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprungli. At Lindt, you'll learn about the full process, from bean to Lindor ball. The centrepiece is the chocolate fountain, which employs 94 metres of pipes to pump 1400 kilograms of gooey goodness around the nine-metre-high edifice at one kilogram per second.

You can also make your own masterpiece under the guidance of a Lindt Maitre Chocolatier. And, of course, you're invited to buy up big at the 500-square-metre gift shop, billed as the largest chocolate shop in the world. Most Lindt Home of Chocolate tours include all-you-can-eat tastings, which should help you get over the disappointment of the lack of Oompa-Loompas on the factory floor.

Another factory, Maison Cailler in Broc, about 60 kilometres south of Bern, features a museum, workshops and intriguingly, the Maison Cailler Escape Game, a 90-minute escapade, rewarded at the end by [spoiler alert] chocolate!

Switzerland should be on every chocoholic's basket list. Its flag is a big plus, too. Just don't forget to grab a Toblerone at the airport on your way home.