Broiling in Italy
 

Looks like a nice heatwave has overtaken Italy and Europe just in time for my trip. We leave Saturday for two weeks: Rome, Florence, Positano, Capri. The weather looks outstanding for the beach resorts and we will get much uyse out of our hotel pools and swimming in the Mediterranean beside the La Faraglioni :) However, Rome and Florence look torrid. I also understand many elderly are having difficulties(and even fatalities) with the heat.

What will you do to beat the heat in toursity Italian cities? I see gallons(ooops...I mean liters) of Gelato in my future. ;) Also some nice Tuscan wine and crostini while under the shade of a enoteca's patio.

Stay cool!

I hope your hotels have air conditioning!

But even if they don't, you'll surely have a wonderful trip. Heat is just an excuse to slow down a bit.
Byrd

My coworker took two of those little hand-held fans that spray water - she said she could have sold 100 of them!

http://www.o2-cool.com/misting.html

Don't forget.... water, water, water.

We just got back yesterday and the temp was far higher than we had expected. Our "feels like" temp was in the mid to upper 90's while there.

www.accuweather.com gives excellent US and world weather on an hourly basis if you would like to try to plan out your day around the weather.

I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time but let's face it..it is hard to "avoid" humidity at any time of day.

Start out early in the day and if you run acrooss one of those "Fodorites" who told you "you don't really need air conditioning," shoot them TWICE!!!

Have a great trip.

We just got home (and it was hot).. so we did outside things early or late (Forum, etc) and did our walking in the early and late day... This was a great excuse for a long, wonderful lunch break. In the hottest part of the day we hung out at the hotel (nap, reading, journal writing)or visited museums/churches in the mid day heat. There are lots of cold, free flowing water fountains everywhere - so keep a bottle with you and just refill as needed.

I live in the north now, Chicago. It's been in the 90's for two weeks, and no real rainfall in site. I come from Va. Beach. Is the heat people are so concerned about in Italy right now that much worse? I leave for Italy in two weeks.

In the United States, just about everything is air conditioned in the summer. I'm not sure about Italy, but in France, that is not the case - that's the difference!

We returned yesterday from Lake Garda/Venice - 7 days of unbroken sunshine, and the temperature actually hit 100 degrees on a couple of occasions. The air conditioning in the hotel was absolutely essential and I'd implore people travelling to northern Italy to drink GALLONS of water, to keep in the shade as much as possible and to re-apply sun block frequently. Saying that it was super to wake up to glorious sunshine every morning! The only downside was a horrendous flight home from Verona to Cardiff; turbulence due to storms over the Alps was petrifying and I actually kissed terra firma when we landed!

We leave for Florence and Rome next week. I live in the South (NC) and it's been sweltering here too. Is the humidity as bad in Italy as it is here? Just wondering, dry heat is much easier to take than humid stickiness.

Yes, it can be. We encountered similar temperatures in Italy (and we never went south of Rome on that trip) and definitely felt the humidity. We got a little relief when there was a breeze, but that's about it. I was VERY glad we'd insisted on booking rooms with air conditioning, even if sometimes it felt like very mild a/c.

Noticed, too, that restaurants with outdoor seating often seemed to close off their indoor rooms altogether and limited dining to the outdoors. Several were restaurants that had advertised they had air conditioning, so I guess they either found it too expensive to operative in those very hot conditions or their customer base preferred the open air.

Anyway, we found we could endure it all if we had access to a cool shower once we returned to our hotel AND a/c for sleeping! Glad plastic bottles of water were readily available. In Rome, we refilled frequently from the ever-present fountains.

From an old post - - http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34456246 - - "Online store to order portable, foldable, battery-operated fan?" - -

Some of the URLs listed there are obsolete, but www.personalfans.com is still very much in business.

I have a model similar to this:

http://www.personalfans.com/Merchant...tegory_Code=VS that has a zillion miles on it now; I value it for the "white noise" almost as much as the "cooling", and it made yet another trip with me last month - - working just as well in those 2nd class couchettes as anywhere.

Best wishes,

Rex

This is why my two favorite times to go to Italy are November and March. I hate the summer. Its bad enough here in New York, where the heat is sucked into the concrete and spit back out at you at every turn. I just can't handle it on vacation. I give you all SO much credit for braving the heat. ((y))

I lived in North Carolina for 11 years. Italy isn't even close to what you deal with. You may need to pack a sweater!

SOO glad to hear that. I've been several places within the US that people said were unbelieveably hot, only to find them completely bearable compared to the sticky heat at home. Plus, I'm willing to endure a LOT of discomfort for this trip (which has been a dream for about 10 years now) So long as I can drink and eat gelato to my content, I'll be fine... It's the complaining hubby I'm worried about :)

NC is south????
Come om down here for some hot'Lanta heat.
Two years ago we were in Italy and France in June during a terrible heat wave. No fun in bigger cities (air conditioning a must), but no problem in the hill towns. None of the places we stayed at in Tucany,Umbria or Como had airconditioning, but the nights were fine.

you must have A/C. We hit the heat wave late June in 03 and switched a hotel in Florence to get A/C and it was imperative. Teh coast you'll get some breeze. Water, wine, water, wine. Alternate.:) Bring skirts and lights tops, keep it loose and cool. Hat, and get up early, plan a museum tour in the afternoon, stay in the shade. YOu'll still have an amazing time!

My daughter & SIL just returned from Rome. It is very hot, really hot, and the humidity is terrible. And further north the temps are even worse. And of course a/c is not as common as here in the US. But in N.Italy there is such a surge of electrical use due to a/c's there is a worry about that. I doubt anyone will need a sweater.

Luckily every hotel we booked I made it a point to inquire about A/C! I can't wait to sweat in a piazza with a gelato. You got to eat it fast though. ;)

Light is the luggage of the summer traveler!

((H))

Yup, one carry-on for me for two weeks! Lots of breathable cottons and linen and sandals! I am so pyched I can't sit still !

We just returned from 6 weeks and watched the temps rise each day. I suggest white "fishing" shirts with vented backs. My husband took 3 and never wore another shirt--said they really helped. They wash well also. Don't be afraid to use an umbrella--you may look odd--but you will be envied. I saw several women with them. Everybody suggests black clothes. Stupid in the heat. I found that a white sleeveless blouse that I bought and added at the last minute was a god-send. I washed it out each night. Wear waterproof makeup or none at all--it will just wash off after a couple of hours.

LoveItaly... maybe you don't live in the south... Gives new meaning to hell on earth....

I was in Rome during the heatwave of 2003...biggest adjustment, switching from red wine to cooler white wine :)

Enjoy your trip!

Julie_colorado, cm'on, N.C. isn't really THAT bad! Well, maybe compared to Colorado. The N.C. mountains are delightful - that's where all us Floridians go, at least the ones who can afford second homes. Myself, I prefer to stay here in South Florida (mostly inside!)in the summer, and go to Europe in the spring and fall.

Hi Julia_colorado, I was not the one in Rome the month of June. My daughter & SIL were due to a big family problem in Rome. My SIL was born and raised in Rome so he is use to the summer weather there.

I and my daughter & SIL and live in the southern end of the Sacramento Valley. Today it was 99 degrees - and it will get hotter for sure.

But my daughter & SIL were really not bothered by the heat here (they just returned home a couple of days ago) as they compared the heat and humidity here to Rome and felt like the heat here was nothing. Probably due to the fact that the humidty was lower here. I know it can get terrible in the south. I think the problem in Italy is that they do not have the a/c like we do in the US. And evidently the north of Italy (per my friends there) is even hotter than in Rome. Sounds like another miserable summer. Take care and stay cool.

The difference between bearing the heat at home and on an Italian vacation in this heat is that our air-conditioning is really cool and sometimes cold. Not so in Italy, if they have it at all. PLUS, if the weather is unbearably hot here you stay in air-conditioning most of the day. On vacation you are walking, walking, walking. The sun was so brutal that I carried the hotel's umbrella with me in Florence and risked looking like an old lady. It was a life saver, though.

Opus,

I feel your pain!

I was in France in 2003 during the "unseasonable heat wave" (as I kept hearing over and over) at the end of May.

Being at a Caribbean resort at a swim up bar is much preferable to walking over cobblestones, visiting chateaux / castles on the tops of hills with no shade! The humidity was a killer.

By week 3 I was investigating coming home early - something I've NEVER done on a trip before (ok, there were some other mitigating circumstances, like lots of strikes, etc)but the bottom line was that by Week 3 it had really worn us down. On top of that, we stayed at a lovely converted mill in the South of France, left the windows open to catch any breeze, and I came home with 32 mosquito bites!

The only tip I can give you is what others have said - make sure to hydrate yourself with lots of water. And, you might want to pack a washcloth from home, or one of those bandana type things in a ziplock bag & take it with you. Soak it in a fountain and apply it to the back of your neck for a few minutes. It's a temporary relief, but a welcome one (thanks Grandma for teaching me that as a child)!

Comments about the A/C are correct -- it's no where near what we have here. When you first get into a room, cab, etc, and are broiling, you think "ahhh"...five minutes later you're wondering what happened to it?! Some low low setting not known to Americans!

The good news is that I may be the only person to have gone to France and actually LOST weight! Because of the heat I ate ALOT of Salad Nicose (and any other kind of salad); sometimes for dinner I just had an appetizer, it was just too hot to have a big meal!

Good luck and let us know how you made out!

Regards,

Melodie

We just returned from Umbria on July 2. I have lived in the South and believe me, it was HOT. We hit 42 degrees in Deruta which is about 108. We just slowed down and toured in the morning, stuck to the churches, ate lightly, drank lots of cold Orvieto and Grechetto and spent the afternoon at the pool side at our villa. With 4 children in tow, that was the only thing we could do but it was still a great trip. The Italians were being very accomodating with the sleeveless and shorts issues in the churches, too.
Cheers,
Jan

I've always thought those average temperature tables in guidebooks don't tell the whole story. More often than not, the high temps feel a LOT higher and the low temps feel a LOT lower. Humidities and wind strength have a lot to do with how it really feels. And it might feel drastically different in the cities from just one block to the next!

Hi Platzman, I agree with you. And yes the cold can feel so much colder as the Italians don't all have central heating like we do here in the US. There have been time while in Veneto in October I thought I would die from the cold. Was to embarresed though to eat dinner at friends homes while wearing my coat, LOL. But I sure wanted to.

In years past Europe was not so hot, even in areas normally considered hot. The temperature has increased enormously in the last decade, and in all likelihood it will continue to increase, thanks to global warming. Each year breaks new records. The real mystery is that very few Europeans seem to understand that theses are not "unseasonable heat waves" but are in fact the normal weather for the future, and they are completely unprepared. A lot of adaptation will be necessary in the coming years, and the highest item on the list will be air conditioning, which Europeans will have to install whether they want to or not. In the meantime, if you happen to be visiting during one of these constant "unseasonable" heat waves (which is increasingly difficult to avoid), you'll suffer unless you can find a hotel or something that is truly air-conditioned as it should be.

Hi AnthonyGA, in the area of Veneto (which has a lot of people with high incomes) so many residents now have airconditioning that there is a big worry about electrical usage.

The older (going back centuries) homes have really thick walls but newer construction doesn't, which adds to the misery.

It sure seems as the "average" temps are changing in Europe.