Cool days out with the best ice cream
EVERY week our Holiday Hero NEIL SIMPSON takes an in-depth look at a brilliant holiday topic, doing all the legwork so you don’t have to. This week: Days out for ice cream lovers.
NOTHING says summer like an ice cream, and this year families can find plenty of unusual places to indulge in the latest flavours.
In Cheshire, the long-established Ice Cream Farm has grown into a theme park with rides, attractions and what the Guinness Book Of Records has certified as the biggest ice-cream parlour in the world.
Children can play in sweet-themed areas, including a Rocky Road track for miniature cars, a Marshmallow Mound of trampolines and a Honeycomb Canyon full of sandpits and water features.
More than 50 flavours of ice cream are on sale at the farm near Chester, including Jammy Dodger, Bakewell Tart and Bubblegum.
The ice cream tree with colourful scoops on its branches is a great backdrop for family photos. There is even a drive-thru for last-minute cones and tubs as you leave.
Rides cost from £4.50 per person (theicecreamfarm.co.uk).
Nardini’s, a restored Art Deco cafe in Largs, Ayrshire, has become a tourist attraction in its own right. Often described as an ice cream palace, rather than a mere parlour, it seats 200 in a building overlooking the Clyde that dates from 1935 when its founders, who moved from their native Tuscany to Renfrewshire in 1890, opened the cafe.
The menu offers 32 flavours as well as the famous Clyde Coast Extravaganza – with 12 scoops of ice cream and 16 toppings, it’s a sundae for the whole family to share (nardinis.co.uk).
In the Peak District, sweettoothed visitors can take guided tours at Thorpe Farm near Hathersage to see how the ever-changing range of Hope Valley ice creams are made.
Bring sleeping bags and you can stay near its creamery in one of five bunk houses. From £150 a night, families can have sole use of dormitory-style rooms with up to eight beds (hope-valley.co.uk).
To make your own ice cream, look no further than The Avenue Cookery School in Wandsworth, South-West London. Children can get their hands messy in 90-minute classes while there are also adults-only alternatives where flavours include grapefruit and gin granita. Classes cost from £60pp (theavenue cookeryschool.com). London also offers ice-cream walking tours with free tastings galore. Guides promise extra helpings of history as groups are led through the cafes of Soho and Covent Garden in search of scoops. Find ice-cream tours under ‘food adventures’ at not in the guide books. com or under ‘tours and walks’ on funzing.com. Expect to pay about £40pp for a three-hour walk. Sandwich & Scoop or Sandwich & Sundae events are on offer at The Little Ice Cream Company in Felixstowe in Suffolk.
The shop’s ‘cow to cone’ production uses milk from a Holstein herd grazing just outside the town, and while it already offers some 80 flavours, its staff are always looking for something new. Make a suggestion online and if it passes the taste test, it could go on sale later in the summer (littleicecream company.co.uk).