Ice!

For reasons we never understand, Europeans just haven’t developed the taste or need for ice, like we have. The RVs we drove all made ice cubes, some very few, and some a few more, so we often were on the lookout for more ice, because it’s indispensable for ice-tea and Coca Cola, American Style.

After the several hot days in Sicily, we were in desperate need for ice. In a hotel bar they said maybe they had some cubes. When their bar was first opened a couple of years earlier, someone had put water in the ice cube trays, but no one had even looked at them since. The ice-cube compartment was frosted into one solid white mass, and soon several people were chipping and laughing and finally reached the ancient cubes. They were so surprised and pleased that someone wanted the ice, they refused the tip I tried to leave for them. A similar thing happened at a small store/restaurant in the town of Levanto, Italy — they were happy to give me the few cubes they had, but refused the money.

Monteriggioni’s Piazzale Roma is a colorful place, but the most exciting thing that day was the tiny grocery store that was open and had cut watermelon on ice. We sat on a bench in Piazzale Roma and ate ice-cold watermelon. Pescara, Italy, was locked tight on a Saturday afternoon, except for the fruit stands which had blocks of ice covered with cooling watermelon. The only two places we have seen watermelon available for eating.

A gas station in Aigues-Mortes, France, had small blocks of ice for sale, and in Rocamadour, France, we bought three, 2” diameter by 14” long, ice “things.” We put some in the RV freezer, but used most of it for ice-tea American style, right then and there. On a hot day in St. Cirq Lapopie, France, we were assured that in all of their expensive restaurants combined, we wouldn’t find a half dozen ice cubes. However, a small restaurant on the edge of town gave us their last dozen ice cubes, and would not accept payment for them.

Everytime we asked at McDonald’s, in several countries, they were happy to give us large cups of ice for our needs. In Pompeii, in Paris, and dozens of other places, we put plastic bottles of water in the campsite office freezer overnight, and had plenty of ice for a day or two.

In Nimes, France, the refrigeration truck for “Holiday on Ice” was preparing the playing field in the 2,000 year old Roman Amphitheater for the ice show. Near Iseo, Italy, an advertisement said “Holiday on Ice” was soon to be performed.

In the Panorama Café, nearly 500 feet above ground in Stuttgart’s TV tower, Emmy’s fluent command of the German language resulted in a cup of coffee with an ice-cube, instead of the dip of coffee-flavored ice-cream she thought she had ordered. Kaffee-Eis or Eis-Kaffee, who knows.