Italian Gelato: Beat The Heat

August in Italy is pretty brutal temperature wise. The island of Venice is probably one of the worst places you can be. With temperatures nearing 100 degrees and humidity to match, without any breeze it will do a number on almost everybody. But there is a way that you can help battle this terrible situation, it’s a simple as ordering a medium cup of your favorite flavor from one of the thousands of gelato stands in the city.

Italian gelato is a treat, there’s not disputing that. It’s always made from the freshest of ingredients and if you order one of the fruit flavors, you can believe that you’re eating real fruit and not some imitation color and flavor.

The gelato itself can be found throughout the city, from the small coffee shop to the shop that specializes only in gelato. The standard flavors are there; like chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. But sometimes you can find something that is truly unique to a specific shop or to a time of year. Currently many shops are offering Melon, this is your standard melon that you buy at the market, sometimes called cantaloupe, and it is really refreshing.

One of my personal favorites to beat the heat is the combination of one scoop of pineapple gelato and one scoop of coconut gelato. It’s like a little bite of Hawaii every time. Don’t get me wrong, there are others such as Fuego del Mundo, which is a vanilla ice-cream with ribbons of caramel and spiced up with rum which is good in the evening after a hearty dinner. But there are such an array of flavors and they change so often that it can be hard to decide on just one. My suggestion for this is to try them all and to visit as many as possible. If you’re REALLY lucky, you’ll have the chance to try the RED WINE Gelato, my personal and all time favorite!