Tuscan mosquitoes
 

We are looking for Chianti area apartments/farmhouse/villa accomodations for a week stay in June/July. How concerned do we need to be about bugs and mosquitos. I remember Assisi being pretty buggy a few years ago...should we limit ourselves to the (few) places with air conditioning?

When we stayed in a Tuscan villa in July (it was very hot) we wouldn't have even used the AC if we'd had it; the house was dark and well insulated so it always stayed nice and cool. However, we did share our bedroom with a family of wasps and a scorpion or two (talk about sleeping with one eye open!). And yeah, we all ended up with quite a few unrecognizable bites. We were just so excited to be there we really didn't care, though.

Screens or AC probably wouldn't help with a scorpion problem. The point of air conditioning is not the heat...just that it allows you to keep windows closed. I would prefer to have the fresh air, even if it is warm, but I am not sure I want to spray myself and my family with DEET just to keep from scratching all the time. How much of a problem has this been for people? By the way, Jocleyn, where did you stay?

We stayed at Villa Nava, through www.tuscanynow.com. It was about halfway between Florence and Arezzo, up in the Chianti hills. It was a stunningly beautiful location and property, but a half hour drive to the nearest train station (Montevarchi) and about 20 minutes to the highway. There were lots of untouristed small towns nearby which were a real treat, but next time we'd like to be a little less secluded. The villa itself had 6 bedrooms and was very rustic but charming. tuscanynow.com has hundreds of properties, and of course there are countless similar websites.

Keep in mind, if you're going to be outside in the evenings, eating out on the back patio or wandering the grounds, you'll need insect spray anyway to keep the bugs away.

We had a similar problem in the south of France and all of us ended up looking like we had a terminal disease! We then found these mosquito heating repellents or something like that in one of the drawers. You plug it in and it releases something I'm pretty sure isn't terribly good to breathe, but it had a pretty good effect on killing the mosquitoes.

topping for kevdoy

the mosquitoes love me. How do I say Mosquito repellent in Italian?

Should I bring anti-bug juice, or can I get it in Italy and what do I ask for?

The word for mosquitoes in Italian is "zanzare," and all the repellants in the store seem to be for spraying around the room rather than on one's body so I'd suggest you bring your own can of Off or something like it. I once bought a plug in contraption that released some poisonous gas in the house, but the whole thing made me nervous. You really don't need A/C as long as you have window screens.

kevdoy,

We were in the Chianti area a few weeks ago, and yes, it was quite buggy. I wouldn't recommend limiting yourselves to places that offer AC. In Europe AC is often shut off at night and/or may not run as cold as you're used to at home.

There is a very good repellant that you can purchase in Europe. The name is Autan.
It is made by Bayer, but I don't believe it is available in the US.
I don't like chemicals, either, but mosquitos love me and I need to use something.
We were careful at night in Italy and France to leave the lights out at night in the bedrooms. Of course, there were no screens on the windows. That way you could get a nice breeze and avoid the little beasties that bite.

Those little electrical thingies are called vape (vah-pay). There's a tablet of solid insecticide about two inches square that fits into a plate that is warmed by electricity. The insecticide is disseminated by the heat. The ones we used made no noise, and there was just a subtle smell of the gently wafting insecticide. You have to decide which is worse, the insecticide or the mosquitos; we opted to use the vape and are alive to tell the story.

Yes, they have it in Italy, anyway. I was hit only twice this summer (and NOT in Venice!!!), which is a surprise, being a mosquito magnet and, in the last couple of years, somewhat allergic to them. Saw this hardware shop on the other side of St. Mark's in Venice that had the warming electric things mentioned by another poster, that really do work. They also had a variety of other mosquito repellant gadgets.

Just checked the label on the repellant recommended by the pharmacist in Florence. It's Autan, the same as Cher mentioned above. Good stuff.

As you may be able to infer from these two posts, we were beseiged by mosquitos in Italy in September and October. We were careful not to turn on the lights in our room at night while the windows were open. I just pulled the sheet over my head, but DH, obviously sweeter than I, slathered himself with repellant and plugged in the vape.

Thanks for the feedback. I will bring something with me and buy more when I get there.

The mosquitos have not been bad in Florence this past week and we are on the Arno.

HI--I am really glad I read this post b/c we stayed in Chianti in a B&B w/o AC in late May one year and I had *no* idea that bugs, (let alone scorpions!!!) could be a problem. When we were there it still got very cool at night, so maybe the mosqitoes were not yet active. We had windows w/no screens of the old fashioned swing open type and we never saw any bugs, nor were we bitten. Now I am wondering if we were just lucky or if that time of year is safe from them.

Topping for Katerbug...

To Betsy, I found all this info this morning. What do you mean by Topping...? I wrote down the products mentioned (Autan, vape) and am looking forward to the scorpions when we're in Chianti in October! Ha ha. We're staying at Ricavo.

Topping means bringing the thread back to the top of the list so more folks will see it and (possibly) respond.