If you think about Gdansk, the city in the North of Poland on the Baltic Sea, you might think of World War Two starting here, or of the pretty pastel buildings all over the city, or of it’s many historical museums. You’re unlikely to think of ice cream and neither did I, until we came here and did an ice cream tour. The city actually has an unexpected link to ice cream as the US army made it, in the air, during world war two. Yes, in the air. Insane. We learnt a lot of other ice cream facts too which I won’t spoil for you in this post. If you’re planning on visiting Gdansk, my complete guide to Gdansk should be helpful for you, so do read that after you’ve finished this post!
We found the ice cream tour on air b n b experiences, which is somewhere I always check when I’m visiting a new place, and the idea was we would have a guide who would take us round three of the best ice cream shops, we would get a scoop each in each shop, and we would also have a bit of a mini tour of parts of the city, finishing up at the Shipyard. The tour was £23 each which felt reasonable for a three hour tour which included three ice creams and a bottle of water, as at home we’d be paying at least £2 for an ice cream, likely more, and the tour guide’s time is valuable too.
Our guide, Natasa, was a lovely Canadian-Hungarian lady who’s lived in Gdansk for four years, and she knew so much about ice cream and it’s history. Her enthusiasm for the subject meant the tour went by so quickly and she showed us three ice cream shops she really recommends, having tried most of them in the city, as having the best quality and the best flavours of ice cream. I can highly recommend the tour, which you can book onto here if you’re going to be in the city.
Our ice cream at Paulo’s Ice Cream
I’m not going to spoil Natasa’s tour but one place I really enjoyed was Paulo’s Ice Cream, and their unusual flavours of ice cream which are all made a couple of hours away by them at their factory. I tried the Pear, Gorgonzola and Walnut and it was absolutely delicious, tasting very similar to cheesecake. As a not very adventurous with food sort of person I was pretty stunned I was brave with the ice cream choice but it was worth it and I’d highly recommend doing the same. Their flavours change regularly, when they run out of one they don’t remake it, so if you like the look of a flavour but don’t try it there and then you might lose your chance. Later on in the tour, at the other shops, I tried a traditional Polish flavour which is basically ‘cream’ and was really nice, a ‘surprise flavour’ that ended up being pistachio and cream, english dessert flavour and a cream, white and dark chocolate, hazlenut and waffle flavour which was as tasty as it sounds.
As our tour ended Natasa treated us to a drink each in a lovely cafe/co working space at The Shipyards. I had a fresh orange cold brew (again with the slightly adventurous choice) and J went for a green juice as he wasn’t feeling too well (nothing to do with the ice cream!) We really enjoyed our drinks and it was a great way to end the tour.
Have you ever done any air b n b experiences? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear your thoughts
Leave a Reply