ItalyTraveller experience.

The relationship between Turin and chocolate is over 500 years old, a lasting love affair celebrated in many of the shops which line the streets of this, the capital of Piedmont. Guido Gobino (www.guidogobino.it) is the best known of Turin's chocolate makers. Since the city hosted the Winter Olympics of 2006, he has enjoyed something close to celebrity status, both at home and abroad. Guido Gobino took over the reins of the family-run business in 1995, and immediately set to work creating new specialities such as the mini-gianduiotti "Tourinot" and the "Tourinot Maximo". His shop, which is on via Langrange, close to the Egyptian Museum, is an absolute "must" for chocoholics, with its reading room, "extreme tasting" room, video installations and emotional zones.

Since 1796, Bologna's chocolate making business has been in the hands of the Majani dynasty (www.guidogobino.it), whose confectionery is sold throughout Italy but, ideally, should be tasted in the company's Belle Epoque style shop in via Carbonesi 5. Majani's Cremino Fiat was first created in 1911 to celebrate the launch of the Fiat Tipo 4.

The young Franco Rizzati is one of the emerging stars of Italy's chocolate industry. In 2005 he opened the Bottega del Cioccolato dell'Offelleria Rizzati (www.rizzati.it) in the center of Ferrara. Here you can not only taste traditional patisserie, such as the legendary Torta Tenerina, but also chocolates with intriguing, beer-filled centers, smoked chocolate, and little cases of rich dark chocolate filled with candied pumpkin.

Whilst chocolate may not feature in Tuscany's ancient confectionary tradition, times have changed, so much so that today the area between Pisa and Prato, passing by Monsummano Terme and Agliana, has earned itself the name of "Chocolate Valley". It is here that you will find internationally famous artisans of chocolate and a generation of talented young chocolatiers destined to further honour the name of Italian chocolate.

When the Dutch cook and confectioner Paul de Bondt (www.debondt.it) fell in love with his future wife, Italian designer, Cecilia Iacobelli, he chose Pisa as the city in which to create a chocolate company which would best express the complementary nature of the couple's diverse characters. Together they created a series of aromatic of "special" bars using pepper, peperoncino, ginger, and coriander, but also orange blossom, jasmine, bergamot and rose. The de Bondt's success became an international one when they were named in Chantal Coady's highly authoritative The Chocolate Companion as one of the 15 best chocolate manufacturers in the world. The "De Bondt Ryé" chocolates, created in collaboration with the Sicilian Donnafugata wine company, are the perfect accompaniment to the highly prized Passito of Pantelleria "Ben Ryé".

Recently opened in Agliana, the Mannori Espace (www.mannoriespace.it) is an innovative polifunctional space, created by master chocolatier Luca Mannori. This is an open, chocolate laboratory where you can watch the young, and highly professional team at work, attend courses and seminars and, of course, taste and purchase the confectionery produced. Agliana is also the chosen base for the doyen of Tuscan chocolatiers, Roberto Catinari. Despite Catinari's world wide fame, his shop Arte del Cioccolato (www.robertocatinari.it), is surprisingly simple. However, it is here that chocolate lovers experience the most intense of cocoa-induced pleasures.

Monsummano Terme, in the province of Pistoia, is Andrea Slitti's home territory. Slitti (www.slitti.it) won first prize in the 1994 Grand Prix International de la Chocolaterie in Paris. Among the many delicacies on sale at the Caffé Slitti you find "Ricciosa" and "Slittosa" creams, "Tortina", chocolate covered disks of puffed rice and almonds, and a fabulous assortment of coffee-filled pralines.

This tour of Italy draws to a close in the Sicilian town of Modica, where chocolate is still produced according to the method used by the Aztecs, which was introduced here during the Spanish dominion. In this little town, synonymous with the sweet delicacy made here, a grainy, brittle chocolate is produced using an ancient technique in which the cocoa is cold-pressed with sugar granules and flavoured with Chili, Coffee, Cinnamon, Ginger, Orange Essence, Pistachio, or Vanilla - the lack of heat allows the full aroma of the cocoa to be conserved without the addition of fats. These specialities can be found in Dolceria Donna Elvira (www.donnaelvira.it) or at the Antica Dolceria Bonajuto (www.bonajuto.it).