Beach Ice Cream

Eating ice cream on the beach .... what a wonderful picture that conjures up in the mind. Children and adults alike love eating ice cream by the sea.

Why is that? Well, let's take a look at it.

To my way of thinking there are a few reasons for this but the main 3 main reasons are:

1. Most of us go on a beach when it's sunny and warm and on a warm day an ice cream is a really welcome treat - cool and refreshing.
   
2. Eating ice cream can be a bit messy. Let's face it, how many of us have never dripped an ice cream cone onto our clothes? I don't see many hands up in the air for that one! So where better to not worry about messing up your clothes than when you're on the beach - most people are in their casual clothes or swimwear so it's not a big deal to clean up any ice cream that's gone astray.
   
3. On many beaches, even on those without major facilities for buying food and drink, you can usually find an ice cream seller that comes by during the day. Sometimes on foot but very often in a small motorised ice cream cart, these ice cream sellers doing a roaring trade.

Here's a photograph of one in Zandvoort where the beach stretches for miles on end, giving the ice cream seller a vast sales patch. It must be good business - look at how well organised this ice cream seller is with a tractor and beautifully attractive pink ice cream cart. Hard to resist!

Zandvoort, like many other seaside resorts, is abundant with opportunities to eat ice cream off the beach as well.

It has some great ice cream parlours and some of the best ice cream display cones I've ever seen.

If you know of a great beach for ice cream and want to share it with others I have left this post open to comments. No junk mail please - this is a serious blog for people seriously interested in ice cream. Thank you on behalf of all the good bloggers that are out there!

Beach Sunset & Ice Cream

As my regular readers know, I love it when I come across people and places with strong ice cream connections.

One place I wrote about last year that seems to abound with ice cream kiosks, ice cream parlors and large ice cream display cones is Zandvoort, a delightful beach resort in the Netherlands. One of the best ice cream display cones I have ever seen was there - a smiling polar bear holding a giant ice cream cone of chocolate and mint choc chip ice cream! Read more about the bear and where I found him on my big ice cream cones post.

If you ever get the chance to visit the Netherlands, especially in the summer months, then Zandvoort is a great place to visit for a day trip or weekend.

The reason for writing this post is that I just came across a fantastic video of a summer sunset filmed on Zandvoort beach. It's a wonderful, relaxing piece with a soundtrack only of what was happening live at the time - the natural sounds of a busy summer's days coming to a close (during which no doubt many an ice cream cone had been eaten!) and the gentle sound of the sea lapping up onto the beach.

This kind of thing is what makes the Internet so enjoyable and such a positive means of sharing good experiences. Let's have more please!

View the Zandvoort video

Big Ice Cream Cones!

Anyone who loves ice cream will enjoy an ice cream cone. It might be a straight strawberry ice cream cone or a vanilla ice cream cone with strawberry sauce swirled on top; it might even be a multiple scoop cone with lots of different flavors! The funny thing is that all of these ice cream cone variations can be seen in a larger than life way - as giant ice cream cones used for displays.

Whenever I'm out and about I keep my eyes open for these; you can usually find them outside ice cream kiosks and ice cream parlors.

On a recent trip to Zandvoort in the Netherlands I couldn't believe my eyes - within the space of a few hundred yards I counted 6 (six) beautiful giant ice cream cones and every one of them different! 4 were outside fast food kiosks that also served ice cream and the remaining 2 were outside Zandvoort's beloved ice cream parlors. Out came the camera of course. Of all the photos we took, my favorite is the polar bear with the 2 scoop ice cream cone who sits happily outside the San Remo Gelataria in Zandvoort (photo). A giant cone of chocolate ice cream, pistachio ice cream and whipped cream on top!

And you can't visit the San Remo and not eat an ice cream! We enjoyed some truly wonderful ice cream there - all homemade from what I'm told too. Some great photos and an inside scoop of a story (forgive the pun) to follow soon including a picture of one of the best ice cream spoons I've ever seen!

In fact there should be 2 or 3 more articles to follow shortly about ice cream in Zandvoort. I've just seen the photos we took and can't believe just how many ice cream associations there were on that trip. Maybe that's why I love the place so much!