2 Best Sights in The Meir, Diamantwijk, and Centraal Station, Antwerp and the Northeast

Taking its cue more from Willy Wonka than any museum, this carnivalesque look at the humble cocoa bean is one of the city's biggest crowd-pleasers. Inventive and whimsical, room after room boasts Heath Robinson--esque contraptions that make the history of chocolate making and its production a story worth telling. It's as theatrical as it is informative, using projections, stagecraft, and workshops. Audio guides are pointed at information points along the way, and some rooms are time-locked so you can't leave until your group is done, but there's often a handful of chocolates on hand to quiet the impatient. The finale is a tasting room where you're free to try 10 different kinds of melted chocolate.

Antwerp's zoo houses its residents in style. Giraffes, ostriches, and African antelopes inhabit an Egyptian temple and a thriving Congolese okapi family grazes around a Moorish temple. In part, this reflects the public's taste when the zoo was created 170 years ago. Today, animals are allowed maximum space, and much research is devoted to endangered species. The zoo also has sea lions, an aquarium, and a house for nocturnal animals.