Inside Switzerland's most tempting attraction, where willpower quietly melts

I can say with complete sincerity that if you ever dreamed of visiting a chocolate factory as a child, experiencing it as an adult is even sweeter than you imagined.

Built for chocolate lovers worldwide, the Lindt Home of Chocolate opened in 2020, adjacent to the company's factory in Zurich. It includes a museum, gift shop, cafe and nine-metre-tall chocolate fountain (Augustus Gloop, beware). Today, however, I've come to make my own signature chocolate.

By chance, I'm visiting Switzerland just days before Christmas. Dozens of real Christmas trees decorate the building. The staff all wear matching knitted Christmas sweaters, and the company's iconic gold Christmas bear is everywhere - from a giant inflatable by the entrance to a small basket of gold-foil-wrapped bears by the information desk.

While you can learn to make champagne truffles and Dubai chocolate at Lindt's Chocolateria, my 90-minute class today involves making my own personalised Lindt Bar. After donning an apron and a puffy chef's hat with Lindt's gold-embroidered logo, my small group whips around as a hidden entrance opens with a theatrical flourish to reveal a luxury chocolate-centric, Christmas-themed version of the Masterchef kitchen.

Two large copper pots of melted dark and milk chocolate occupy opposite sides of the workbench I'm allocated, and I decorate them with freeze-dried raspberries and sugared almonds, piping out messages with small parcels of melted white chocolate.

The class is incredibly fun. The museum is thoughtful, engaging and well designed. But it's the part where you can eat as much chocolate as you like in the Lindt Factory that really gets this chocoholic's fingers sticky.

The first indulgence involves three liquid chocolate fountains filled with white, dark and milk chocolate, each squirting a small dollop of the good stuff onto disposable spoons. Just beyond is the next physical challenge: a semicircle of suspended, glass-encased machines stacked with blocks of unmarked chocolate inside.

This one is fun: hold your palm underneath, and the machine cracks a small piece from the bottom block that falls into your hand - and then you guess the flavour. As the sugar sweeps through my bloodstream, I wonder if this contraption is available in the gift shop, imagining it would fit perfectly on my bedside table.

The writer travelled as a guest of Swiss Tourism