In most Zurich travel recommendations one of the first places to visit is the Home of Chocolate, or the Lindt chocolate factory tour.
We did the same, and if you have more than one day in the city or are a chocolate fun, it can be a good idea to visit this place. Beware though that we left the chocolate museum with mixed feelings, which I will talk about later in this article.
Lindt Chocolate Factory Tickets
The very first tip is to buy your tickets in advance. You can easily do this from home at this link weeks or even months before your Zurich holiday. In high season the tour is sold out for at least the next couple of days, so make sure that you don’t miss out.
When buying the tickets online, you need to select the exact date and time when you arrive at the chocolate factory. We picked the 5PM time slot which seemed ideal. This way we had almost the entire day to explore the city before the chocolate factory visit. Also we were one of the last groups to enter the museum, closing at 7, so it was less crowded than usually is during the day.
An adult ticket, at the time of writing this article, costs CHF 15. This is not that expensive in Swiss terms, and basically you can eat free chocolate for that amount of money, having your Lindt chocolate factory tour basically for free.
How to Get to the Lindt Chocolate Factory Zurich
The Lindt chocolate factory is actually located outside Zurich city limits. This is important to note because if you are coming here by public transport, you also need to buy a ticket for zone 150.
The cheapest way is to buy a 3 zone 24 hour Zurich ticket so you can travel for free for 24 hours. It is 3 zones because Zurich itself is considered 2 zones.
Schokoladenplatz 1, 8802 Kilchberg, Switzerland
By Public Transport
You can come here either on an S-Bahn train or a bus. Both are a convenient way to get here from Zurich city center, and both offer a scenic route next to the lake. Obviously the train ride is a couple of minutes shorter, but you also have to walk more from the train station.
By Train
Take the S8 or S13 trains at Zurich main station, and gett off at Kilchberg station.
Head to the South on Bahnhofstrasse, just following the tracks. Continue slightly right on Bungertstrasse, which is a narrow street and runs right besides the tracks. You will go under a bridge, then after 1-2 minutes the street turns to the left. There you will see the brick walls of the Lindt & Sprüngli Chocolate Factory at your right hand side.
By Bus
You can also take bus line 165 at Zurich Bürkiplatz (where the lake flows into the Limmat river), and get off at Lindt & Sprüngli stop. The bus stop literally has the name of the factory, so you just go 20-30 meters back, and you’ll see the white chocolate factory building.
By car
If you come by car, you can either take national road number 3 from Zurich or motorway number 3 from Zurich or from the south. The Lindt Chocolate factory is right on the main road.
On the motorway, take exit 34 to Thalwil. Follow the main road (Zürhcerstrasse) to Thalwil. Then, just after passing under a pedestrian overpass, take a left turn at the big intersection with the pedestrian underpass on to Sonnenbergstrasse.
At a roundabout this becomes Alte Landstrasse, but just continue straight. At the T intersection turn to the right onto Niedelbadstrasse. After passing over the rail tracks, at another T intersection turn to the left on to national road number 3.
You will soon see the Lindt sign on a building at your left hand side. Just continue straight for a couple hundred meters more and a parking garage will be at your left where you can leave your car.
Coming from the North from Zurich on road number 3, you will see the parking garage at your right hand side in Kilchberg.
Our Lindt Chocolate Factory Tour
We did the Lindt Home of Chocolate Tour during our 3 day stay in Zurich. The tour itself was, at least for us, great and kind of a disappointment at the same time.
The cocoa history tour is okay, but just an average museum walk, with some of the displays not working.
But I personally wouldn’t come here just to see this exhibit alone. You see, one definite reason why people come to this place is to sample the Lindor bonbons. In other words, to eat free chocolate.
Our Disappointment
And here is where our disappointment comes from. You can sample free chocolate at the chocolate fountains, as much as you want. Great value. You can also sample free chocolate bar portions at a station where you need to guess the flavor. Also a great value.
But when you enter the Lindor room, they only offer 8 different flavors, the most common ones. This was already a disappointment as we were hoping to taste some exotic or new flavors. The bonbons were too cold in my opinion, I guess they just took them out of a fridge. There is a quite narrow temperature range to really enjoy these, so this was another disappointment. And to add to all that, behind the counter two Lindt employees made sure that everyone took only one of each flavor.
Don’t get me wrong, 8 bonbons are way enough to fill yourself with chocolate, especially after the first 2 other samplings. And I also understand why they try to limit your chocolate consumption. Some visitors packed their pockets and bags literally full with bonbons before the employees actually told them not to do it. But it just gives you a wrong feeling when the place is advertised as you can eat as much as you want, and someone tells you to stop after one.
On the other hand, those ladies weren’t really tough on anyone. If you take one bonbon at the time, eat it right there and go back to take another one, nobody will tell you to stop.
All in all, we had fun in the Lindt Home of Chocolate, got a bit less that we had hoped for, but it was worth visiting this place once.
Tip for Chocolate Lovers
If you, like us, love chocolate, you need to try speciality Swiss bonbons too. There’s a place in downtown Zurich, called Max Chocolatier. They are much pricier than Lindt, but they sell high end hand made bonbons. Check them out while in the city!