Winter travel hazards in Italy February 2012
 

Freezing conditions, continued deep snowfall and rainstorms have disrupted travel throughout Italy, with the major impact being on Northern and Central Italy, but also Rome and Sicily. Some roads are closed to all but emergency traffic. Some passengers have been stranded on trains overnight in freezing conditions, although no one died and service has been restored.

In addition, hazardous walking conditions because of ice on stairs, steps and sidewalks is keeping most people indoors in a wide area of Northern Italy, including the Italian Riviera at sea level. The current forecast is for weather to remain below freezing into next week, with little chance of ice melting in many narrow streets whose surfaces barely receive sunshine in the low winter light.

Icy, slippery surfaces include church steps, historic ruins, hilltown staircases, pedestrian bridges, tiled or marble pavement and train staircases and platforms.

If you are presently in Italy moving about, or arriving shortly, you really need to be careful. Insist on adequate heat in your lodgings, as nighttime temps in many locations are headed well below freezing.

Thanks so much for the update and warnings, zeppole. I've been watching the temps dropping steadily over the past few days. Headed to Venice in 10 days to photograph Carnevale. Hope things warm up a bit by then.

Hope this is not in poor taste but IMO even under normal conditions there are many walking hazards in Italy! Uneven streets and stairs, that slippery slippery granite and marble - the whole country needs to be viewed as "proceed at your own risk". But such a delightful country!

It seems to me that some of these could be addressed. While Italy obviously is not used to such weather - so cities don;t have sanders - or even supplies of sand - putting almost anything - including kitty litter = on the most sippery surfaces will give you some traction. But I guess a lot of people aren't going out due to not having real cold weather clothing - or winter boots.

And if I didn't know it was global warmng I might think it was the Apocalypse - the US with european winter weather and vice versa.

So, the hazards just become a little more hazardous...so, people take more care...not so different from where I live...just saying...

nytraveler,

You put up the same post last year, tsk-tsking and harrumphing about how other people should change. Why should Italians put kitty litter or other abrasives on their centuries-old inlaid church floors or archeological sites? Why should Italians cart heavy sacks of sand up the steep staircases where they live for the rare days it snows? They expect people do have the good sense to stay home when it is dangerous to move about.

The post is really directed at traveling Americans who are accustomed to living in a country where people are so terrified of lawsuits, they eliminate all possible risk from public spaces or erect warning signs when somebody so much as dry mops a vinyl floor. A lot people traveling to Europe from America "to make the most of our time" tend to assume if they don't see a sign in English warning them of a slippery floor or an iced staircase on a bridge in Venice or inside a rural Umbrian train station, there must not be a problem.

Americans may know the hazards of their own backyards, but not many of them are familiar with living in a medieval borgo, where a couple of days of warming sunshine on the roofs might fail to melt the ice at ground level. And so many Americans think they can travel year-round to Italy and takes ferries on Lago di Como or find all the heat they'll need in a hotel with a sea view in February, I thought it was mentioning for the people who still travel, rather than those who sit home and cluck cluck cluck at their computers.

Zepp, a timely and helpful warning.

Yes, I agree, timely and helpful...never hurts, always appreciated...thanks again...

Zeppole,

It's always nice to have your Italian resident input. However, I sure didn't take nytraveler's post the same way you did. Sometimes you are just too prickly.

Local weather information for exceptional conditions, intended for visitors who may be caught completely unaware is great. I do it myself for my heavily touristed and extreme weather town.

Go have a nice glass of Brunello and relax. You get to live in Italy, how can you be so grumpy?

Thanks Zeppole, I was in Austria and Slovenia last week and Austria lost a major airport for a couple of days. Lake Bled was glorious.

Thanks for laying it out clearly, Zeppole. We leave tomorrow for Genoa and I've been watching the 10-day forecast anxiously. I hate being cold, will have to really wrap up in many many layers. Is there still snow on the ground?

omg im going to italy this week. i hope everything gonna be alright.

Perhaps he needs a bottle! He chastised me for asking about travel in Italy because I was inquiring too early.