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On Friday, Dave spotted an entry in one of our guidebooks for Gelateria Nico; apparently the most renowned gelateria in Venice. Never one to pass up a visit to an ice-cream parlour, I squealed and jumped around a bit.
By happy coincidence, the gelateria was about five minutes walk from the Galleria dell’Accademia where we’d spent a few hours looking at more Titians, Tintorettos and Bellinis than you could ever concieve of being housed in one building. Incidentally, the Galleria is by far the best museum/gallery I’ve ever visited. Each room has just the right amount of works to hold one’s attention without everything blurring into one and there are fantastically comfortable benches everywhere so that you can just sit and gaze…. Plus, there are helpful laminated cards explaining the paintings so that you can understand the more obscure ones.
Anyway… a quick walk down some side streets led us to Gelateria Nico. This was much easier to locate than La Zucca the previous night!!
Across from the Gelateria was a small seating area by the waterfront. We decided (wisely, it turned out - the sun was very strong) to have a seat there and watch the cruise ships and ferries go by whilst doing some serious gelato consumption. In the end we ordered two giandiuotto da passeggio, their speciality. The giandiuotto, pictured at the top, consisted of large slabs of chocolate & hazelnut gelato (hazelnuts roasted and chopped very finely) squished into tall glasses with the rest of the available space filled with soft-as-a-cloud whipped cream. I’m still amazed at just how much cream they managed to cram into the glasses and balance on top!
The gelato was very intensely flavoured with a surprising amount of flavour from the hazelnuts. The strength of flavour was tempered nicely by the cream. All in all, a sublime taste experience. Very filling too - I didn’t need to eat for hours afterwards. All that, and a great view for only EUR 4!
GELATERIA NICO
Zattere
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Oh my goodness, there is *nothing* like real Italian Gelato, no? While in Rome, I indulged in a little gelato for breakfast. Why not, the locals were enjoying it too
Thanks for the gelateria listing - I might be travelling to Venice this fall.
Cheers!
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According to “Sweet Sicily” by Victoria Granhoff, Sicilians breakfast (in the summer) on gelato or granita stuffed into orange scented buns. It’s always sounded like the ultimate breakfast to me!!
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I remember when I stayed in Venice on the Grand Canal at Paganelli’s, which was about a 3 minute walk to San Marco’s square. Nico’s Gelateria was AMAZING! The limone, noccilo (spelling?) and annanas! YUM! The best, BEST ice cream I’ve EVER had! That egg content really does make the difference! Eat your heart out Ben and Jerry’s - your ice cream can’t even compete with Nico’s gellato!
Mmm … One of Italy’s top gelaterias. You can’t go wrong with a gelato from Nico’s!