Astorga has been a centre of Spanish chocolate-making since the eighteenth century — the trade was brought back from the Spanish Americas by Maragato muleteers, who controlled the routes from the Atlantic ports inland — and at one point the town counted dozens of small chocolate factories. The Chocolate Museum, in a quiet street near the Plaza Mayor, tells that story with old grinding mills, hand presses, copper roasting pans, packaging from across the centuries, and a recreated early twentieth-century workshop.
The shop at the end of the visit sells excellent local chocolate (the dark, slightly grainy kind), and you can usually buy empiñonadas — pine-nut-encrusted pastries — at one of the bakeries nearby. Entry is modest, around €3. Allow forty minutes.