How to Survive the Hot Italian Summers
/Hiking Cinque Terre in July
The first time spending a whole summer in Italy can be a doozy.
Ok, so really any time you spend any amount of summer in Italy can be a doozy. The further south you are, the hotter it is, and the more you live in the city, the hotter it seems to stay. That’s not to say that Italy has the hottest summers known to mankind. No, but they are hot, and depending on where in the world you’re coming from and what you’re accustomed to, it will seem either “hot” and you deal with it, or it may verge on hellish for others.
I spent 6+ summers in Florence and Tuscany. I love summer, but I’m not a huge beach/endless summer person. I struggle with heat and humidity. I don’t sweat as much as I get flushed in the face. I get headaches if it’s too hot or muggy. All in all, if it’s above 90°F / 35°C, I’m not rejoicing. Yet, despite coming from northern Michigan where we have more months of snow than we do summer, I was constantly surprised by how much Italians and expats complain about the heat. I had figured if anyone was going to be complaining, it would be me since I wasn’t accustomed and didn’t know the cultural how-to’s of staying cool. I think I mentally braced myself so much while also not wanting to look wimpy, that I fared maybe better than most. Well, mentally at least. If a day rolled around in July or August that was 90°F or below, I would get excited about the “cool” day!
Why do Italian summers feel so brutal?
It’s the relentlessness of the heat. High temperatures, little shade, lots of cement and buildings absorbing the heat and reflecting it back at you, nights that get to 68°F at coolest if you’re lucky, barely cooling down before the sun rises and another heatwave is upon you. Add on to that Italian apartments and stores may or may not have air conditioning, and you find yourself at the mercy of the heat for months on end, with little to no respite. Even the places that do have air conditioning, like larger stores and trains, won’t feel the same as say, air conditioning in the USA.
When you find yourself in the heat constantly, you have to find ways to cope. Some things you could call cultural, what Italians know to do to keep their apartments as cool as possible, others are things I did to beat the heat. Yes, sometimes it felt like surviving, especially when I was in my third trimester of my first pregnancy right smack dab in the height of Italian summer, having to walk 30 minutes to all my prenatal appointments. Life in Italy is always an adventure, never a dull moment!
Here are best practices for beating the heat in Italy:
Air Conditioning / Aria Condizionata
Don’t expect air conditioning, but appreciate it where you can get it. Italy has air conditioning, but it is not available everywhere and it is not used to the extent that Americans use it.
Italians believe that abrupt temperature changes can make you sick, thus they disapprove of having to go in and out between hot summer air and cold air conditioning. So, if used, the air conditioning tends be set at a much warmer temperature than an American would be used to. I often see American stores set at 68-70°F or even cooler, where Italian stores, if used at all, would be closer to 80°F. I lived in Mississippi for a couple of years and always struggled because I was too hot outside and too cold inside. Contrast that with how Italians use AC. Once I went into one of the biggest department stores in the city center of Florence, La Rinascente, during the heat of the summer. As I was riding the escalator, I noticed the thermostat on the wall was set to 26°C / 79°F. This was one of the stores I used to visit frequently in the summer not just because I liked it, but because they were a store that reliably used nice air conditioning. And by nice, I mean 79°F. As you can see, not the arctic blast of American AC!
If you have air conditioning in your apartment is another matter. Only about 30% of Italian homes have air conditioning, where closer to 90% of American homes do. Of the 5 different apartments I lived in, 3 had AC. At least, I think 3 did. My first apartment I never turned it on, although I think it was there. Each apartment has just one AC unit. In one apartment I lived in the AC unit was in the hallway, probably to get air as evenly as possible between the main living area and the bedroom. Another was only in one bedroom (and note that I was not in that bedroom but the second bedroom hahaha). The other apartment I think was in the living room, that was the one I never turned on. So again, even if you’re one of the few who has AC, it will be a light cooling air coming from one place in your house and not ice cold air seeping out of all the vents in your home.
When having to run around town for errands and such, I used to have all the places with the best AC pegged down. That way I could plan my day doing what I needed to do, taking breaks from the heat when necessary. Grocery stores are usually pretty good with their AC. So are the bigger book stores, like La Feltrinelli. Trains have air conditioning, but depending on how long the train has been running and how old the train is, it’s not always reliable. I would take the train multiple times a week when I lived just outside the city center and later in a little town just outside of Florence. I can tell you, if the train has been sitting, such as at the beginning of the line, then it will take 30+ minutes before you can start to feel the effects of the AC. This is unfortunate, since my ride was rarely longer than 45 minutes. Usually the AC was just getting going when it would be my stop, and off into the beating sun to walk the rest of the way into the center or home it would be.
Stay inside for the hottest part of the day
Where possible, stay inside for the heat of the day. Depending on just how how it gets, this may mean you’ll want to be indoors by 10am and not got out again until after 5pm, or even later.
This is where the cultural idea of a “siesta” really starts to make sense. Many Italian stores close from 1pm - 4pm (13:00 - 16:00) anyway, which discourages one from going out.
The Italian summertime rhythm is ideally waking up early, working/errands done before the heat of the day really starts, staying indoors for the afternoon, then going out later in the evening and staying out late in the fresh and cooler night air.
Yet another reason late dinners make sense: Not many have an appetite to eat a big dinner at 6pm (18:00) when it’s still 95°F / 36°C outside.
Keep windows and shades closed
Italians know to close all their windows and shutters/shades in the morning before it gets hot out. As depressing as it may seem to keep your apartment or house all closed up and dark, sometimes it’s the only way to keep your home somewhat cool. You’re considered lucky if you have a ground floor apartment. Woe to those on the upper and top floors.
Close everything up before it gets hotter outside than it is inside, then open everything up as soon as it gets cooler outside than inside. It’s as simple as that.
I used to do some experiments in some of my apartments, going back and forth between closing up the apartment during the heat of the day, and other times leaving it open.
On the hottest days my apartment would get up to 95°F / 35°C if I left everything open. Ouch. If I closed everything up in a timely manner, it would get up to 86°F / 30°C. Still hot but much better. Not to mention, the hotter your apartment gets, the longer it takes to cool down when the cooler evening breezes finally start coming in.
Get a stand fan
Since most Italian apartments don’t have air conditioning, you’ll want to get yourself a fan (or 6).
I love fans. You could say, I am a fan of fans. I like the cool air, I like the white noise they provide, I think it’s really cozy to sleep with a fan on. But there’s a catch. Italians and certain Mediterranean cultures believe that having a fan blowing directly on you can make you sick.
So keep in mind that if you room with an Italian, marry an Italian, or stay in an Italian’s house, that you might find yourself in a situation where the other person believes very strongly that it is apparently better to not be able to sleep because it’s too hot than risk getting sick by having a fan blow on you. Heheh.
Dress appropriately
While you might think that the hotter it is, the less you should wear, that’s not actually true. If you think about some of the hotter places in the world, the people and cultures there tend to keep themselves covered, don’t they? You want to protect your skin from the sun, keeping it as covered as you can stand. I for one am not going to be able to withstand wearing a long sleeve shirt in 90°F+ weather, but I would often choose a loose fitting, light cotton T-shirt over spaghetti straps.
Wear a hat and loose clothing. Use sunscreen on any exposed skin. Stick with breathable, lightweight materials like cotton. Wear light colors.
A note for sleeping: wear pajamas, even if you feel like stripping down. Wearing some (preferably breathable, lightweight) pajamas will actually help to wick any sweat away from your skin and keep you cooler. Plus, it’s more sanitary! Same story goes for sheets, choose lightweight and breathable materials to stay as comfortable as possible.
Drink plenty of water
Hydration is your friend! This can be a bummer when you have to walk and be out and about for a period of time. The longer you’re out, the more water you need, and the heavier that is to carry in a backpack. It can also be a bummer if you need a restroom, since free restrooms are hard to come by.
Often when I knew I would be out longer than just needing a bottle or two of water, I would periodically stop in at a grocery store to get a new bottle. Not ideal, but to avoid carrying around too much extra weight you do what you have to do. You can also choose to buy a bottle of water at a bar. You’ll pay more money this way but you’ll also get to use their restroom if you need to.
Also a bummer that in Italy, you pay for water when eating out. Most everywhere serves bottled water, no free tap water. So no diving into a restaurant at lunch time to drink endless water and maybe find some air conditioning. Nope. You’d be better off buying the same bottle(s) of water from the grocery store for some cents rather than euros.
There are a couple key places around the city center of Florence where you can refill a water bottle. I wish there were more, but chances are, if running errands in the city center you might cross one of these places:
Piazza della Signoria - alongside the (north?) side of Palazzo Vecchio there is a little water filling station. Apparently there is a natural spring under there. Choose from “acqua naturale” or “acqua frizzante”, this one is naturally sparkling!
Piazza Indipendenza - there is a water bottle filling station here, which is decently close to the train station.
Outside the city center, sometimes in parks, along shopping areas, and other various spots, are more water filling stations. These are designed to be conveniently located for locals to fill their own bottles, save on plastic, and save on money. When in doubt, follow the people with empty liter-sized water bottles to find the nearest filling station.
Take a warm shower
Supposedly, taking a lukewarm shower will help you stay cool. If you take a cold or cool shower, while you may have momentary relief, your body will be temporarily tricked into thinking it doesn’t need to sweat/cool down, only to find it does indeed need to sweat and keep your body cool once you step out of the shower. You can read more about that here.
Now, of course I tried this because it sounded good, right? I do not like this advice. It might be scientific, but I think part of the reason the heat in Italy is so hard is that there is no break, and it just wears on a body. Taking a cool shower gives your body a much needed break, and while I may get hot and sweaty after, sometimes that break is just enough to avoid a heat headache. That’s my personal experience, anyway.
Eat lots of fruits and vegetables, even spicy foods
Most fruits and vegetables have high water contents and can help with hydration when it’s really hot out.
Like the hot showers, counterintuitively, eating spicy foods can help you cool down. Again thinking about some of the cultures that inhabit the hotter places of the earth and what their cuisine is like, a lot do them eat hot and spicy foods. Seems strange, doesn’t it? Spicy and hot foods can make you sweat, which is your body’s way of cooling itself down. While I don’t love the hot shower advice, I do love spicy food, even in hot weather!
Soak your feet in ice water
This used to be one of the first things I would do after being out in the heat of the day when I was pregnant. Whether I had just been in the hot, stuffy train, or had to walk to a prenatal appointment and back, cooling my feet seemed to be one of the quickest and easiest ways to cool my whole body down without having access to air conditioning. We had just one ice tray, so I would usually split half the tray for my feet and the other half for an iced drink. Ahhh, such relief when being so hot and miserable. Moments like those makes me never want to complain about heat if it’s not truly hot. The little ways of coping, God’s grace, and a (mostly) thankful and positive attitude got me through that particularly difficult summer.
Escape to the seaside
While at first this may feel very 19th century Jane Austen-esque to escape to the seaside for your health, you may soon realize the genius in it. Italians spend a lot of time at the seaside, you could even say most of August when most businesses close for weeks on end. Hot summers are best coped with when spent by water. Florence has a few lakes, but you would need a car to get to most of them, so it’s easier to hop on a train and take the straight shot to the coast. Viareggio is among the more popular destinations, but there are many beaches and the whole coast to choose from! Remember that most beaches in Italy aren’t public beaches, usually they are privately run; very carefully divided and set up with beach chairs and umbrellas for which you must pay for use for the day. This will run you around 30euro for an umbrella and a couple chairs. If you are traveling with more than 3-4 people you will need to pay for more umbrellas/space.
Eat lots of gelato
Ok, so this is one is not so much official advice nor Italian advice as it is my advice and coping tactic: eat gelato daily. This is your ticket to eat it guilt free! Your body is working hard to beat the heat and stay cool, so reward it with a nice and cold sweet treat.
