This is my first trip to Italy. Can you buy cold drinks of any kind in
Italy? Do restaurants serve chilled white wine, water, or sodas?

Sure you can get cool drinks. It's the full-packed glass of ice like for a gin & tonic or coke that is not common. Corner stores or gelatto shops with a frig have bottled water, pop, gatorade, etc.

Cold drinks are easy to find. Its Ice you won't get. (Well, some touristy places may give you a cube or two - but I wouldnt count on it).

Of course you can buy cold drinks. What an odd question.

I disagree that it is an odd question. As some of the above have said, you can get drinks, in cans, such as the ubiquitous soft drink Fanta flavors, as well as "Coke Light" and may be refrigerated (depending on where you buy it). You can also get ice in drinks someplaces if you ask for it..if they know you are Americans they will sometimes bring you more (this has happened to us several times)..but often when you say you want ice in a drink (in a glass) you may get one cube!

Oops..sorry..I assumed you are from North America...I apogize if this is not true.

Of course it's an odd question. "Can you buy cold drinks of any kind" is like saying "do they have indoor toilets."

Clearly Italy = Third World

Hahahahaha! How ridiculous!

OK, so you and I disagree about its being "odd"..really breaks my heart.

Cool drinks are easy. But if you want a really cold drink - huge glass of soda with tons of ice - you will really need to go to McDonalds. Italy - in fact all of europe - is not big on ice cubes, giant drinks - or almost frozen ones. (I've never seen slushees!)

In this, as in most things in life, when in Rome....

The Romans (and the Milanese, and the Neapolitans and...) have, after all, been using technology to quench their thirst since the time the ancestors of most Anglo-Saxons were running round Kent in woad.

Nothing - absolutely nothing - quenches a thirst as well as a spremuta di limone or di arancia. Citrus squozed before you, topped up with only enough decent cold fizzy water to make sure the taste isn't destroyed. And certainly not with so much ice you can't taste the drink.

Why would anyone want anything else?

Not an odd question at all, for ice loving types, taking a first trip.

Typically even the "cool" drinks are not refrigerated quite as cold as what you may be used to if you live in the U.S.

The white wine is served cold, that I can promise from extensive personal experience!

As stated above, cool you will find... ice will be trickier.

I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with Flanner on ANYTHING, but on this spremunta business, I am telling you, I had a spremunta del pompelmo (I like grapefruit juice) at the train station, and it was so unbelieveably good, I had another! (Little known fact about the Venice train station: they have a buffet/bar service in there-full meals-and the food, when just put out around midday, is absolutely delicious-insalata di mare, fresh rigatoni marinara, if you like meat, they had a roast with potatoes and carrots-I'm telling you, it was some of the best food I had in Venice).

But that spremunta d'arancia, you have the blood oranges (which we don't generally get in the States) and it is so sweet, so healthy and as stated, the best of the best thirst quenchers!

As far as the cold drinks question goes, it is BY NO MEANS an odd question. I think I've found that the Italians seem to keep cold drinks colder (certainly more than in the UK). One of the great cultural divides between the US and Europe is the ice in the drinks of course-the one cube in the Coke simply does not get it-Coke is an American drink, and as such, it is absolutely meant to be drunk with a full glass of ice-you don't get the full flavor enjoyment unless you do- so I ALWAYS ask for a lot of ice-and make them give me more-partic. on the plane, when flying with foreign carriers.

But I found on my last visit to Venice that the white wine was served quite acceptably chilled, and the soft drink cans were equally cold, so I had no problem there.

sorry- that should be "Spremuta d'arancia" not "spremunta" (can't stand it when I misspell something).

ny traveler -- you must not have been to the Amalfi coast area then. Granitas (Italy's version of the slushy) -- lemon, mint or strawberry, or even better, the freshly made lemon ones you can get in the main square in Positano. Yummy!

Yes - I have bern to the Amalfi coast several times - and never noticed them. but then - I'm not a slushee fan - so might not have. I was too busy looking at the gelato vendors.

Oh, one more cold drink recommendation - te freddo. They will pour a cup of hot tea and plop a big scoop of lemon granita in it. YUMMY

Surfergirl - I had my first lemon granita years ago in Rome at a little stand by the entrance to the Vatican Museum and have seen other granita stands all over Rome.

Sweetgrass - Even Mcd's will not give you ice like in the states. If you find you absolutely must have a drink full of ice and free refills you have to go to Hard Rock Cafe on the Via Veneto.

Ice is definitely a US custom that is not necessarily prevalent in other parts of the world. If people associate "cold drink" with a glass full of ice, well that is kind of faulty logic. We purchased lovely cold bottled water in the little corner stores all over Italy.

BTW, b/c we were traveling w/a recent college grad, we *did* go to above cited Hard Rock Cafe for a Sunday brunch and we had *wonderful* food!! It may be the HRC, but the food is still cooked by Italians. The omelette was superb!!

Yumm... I love granita!

A friend was mentioning drinking Bellini's in Italy. In what type of establishment would one find them? Also, is the alcohol content very high? The recipes I've seen for them in the US has a rather large alcohol content.