{"id":27260,"date":"2026-06-24T18:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T18:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/27260\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T18:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T18:12:08","slug":"in-the-savage-roman-heat-italians-are-cooler-than-tourists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/27260\/","title":{"rendered":"In the savage Roman heat, Italians are cooler than tourists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Tourists queue to fill their bottles at a public fountain displaying still and sparkling refrigerated water for free near the Colosseum in Rome on Wednesday.ANDREAS SOLARO\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

My local caf\u00e9 in Rome, Ristretto, was packed shortly before 7 a.m. Wednesday, as it has been at that time every day during the deadly heat wave that is gripping Italy and much of the rest of Europe. Italians know how to adapt to hot, humid weather. Tourists, especially those from Canada and the Northern U.S. and Europe, do not. They are suffering. <\/p>\n

This week in Rome, the early morning temperature was about 25 Celsius, positively refreshing compared to midday\u2019s 35-plus. <\/p>\n

Opinion: Is it time to rethink heat?<\/a><\/p>\n

At Ristretto, we all sat outside comfortably reading newspapers and sipping cappuccinos. No one talked about the heat. Everyone was wearing loose-fitting cotton or linen clothes. One regular client had an elegant silk scarf wrapped around her neck. A couple of hours later, when the temperature climbed, the caf\u00e9\u2019s outdoor tables were virtually empty. Only unthinking tourists would bake in the harsh Mediterranean sun at that time. <\/p>\n

At about 11 a.m., I walked to the Colosseum. I ran a gauntlet of men selling bottled water and colourful, flimsy sun umbrellas for \u20ac10 apiece (about three seconds of haggling reduced the price to \u20ac5). Sweaty tourists were lined up in front of a municipal kiosk that was dispensing free natural and sparkling water. While they waited for their tour guides, most visitors sought the shade on the low side of the amphitheatre or in the wedge-shaped shadow cast by the fourth-century Arch of Constantine nearby. <\/p>\n

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A man sells fresh water bottles to tourists as Rome deals with a heat wave.ANDREAS SOLARO\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Many were not happy. \u201cIf it were cooler, we\u2019d be enjoying Rome a lot more,\u201d said Matt Terhark, an automotive worker from Ada, Ohio, who was making his first trip to Europe. \u201cWe try to book most visits early and not go out midday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somewhat less grumpy was Aline Frauel of Strasbourg, France, who was visiting the Colosseum with her mother. \u201cYes, it\u2019s hot in Rome, but not as hot as in France,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

France has been an inferno. Tuesday was its hottest day since records began almost 80 years ago, with the temperature peaking at 44.3 Celsius in the southwestern town of Pissos. At least 40 people have died<\/a> across the country from drowning as they swam in lakes and rivers to cool off; two young children died after they were overcome by the heat in a car. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The thermometer of a drugstore shows the temperature of 39 Celsius in Rome.Andrew Medichini\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the peak temperature in Paris was 40.9 Celsius \u2212 a June record and some 18 degrees above normal \u2212 according to the Reuters climate monitor. Rome was well above normal, too, but not by nearly as much. In Britain, BBC weather forecaster Christ Fawkes said Wednesday that he expects the country\u2019s June temperature record to get \u201cabsolutely smashed,\u201d with highs reaching 37 or 38.<\/p>\n

Europeans will have to take lessons from Italians and other denizens of the Mediterranean fringe. <\/p>\n

In the summer heat, Italians get up early and hit the caf\u00e9 and shops well before the temperature turns punishing. They seek the shade whenever they are outdoors, drink lots of water, go easy on the alcohol \u2212 it\u2019s a diuretic, so it dehydrates you \u2212 and eat dinner late, when it\u2019s cooler. Restaurants typically don\u2019t fill up in the summer until 9 p.m. or so. Children play in the squares well after dark because they would melt in the sun. <\/p>\n

Italian apartments have ceiling fans in almost every room, as well as roll-down shutters. They are not just for security \u2212 they are used to block the afternoon sun. Glass-clad towers such as the ones in Canadian and U.S. cities are rare. Thick walls with relatively small windows keep apartments cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. <\/p>\n

Still, temperatures are rising fast in Italy as climate change hits hard. Europe has heated up at twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization. Summers start earlier and end later, and 30-plus daytime temperatures can endure for weeks. I remember my laptop computer shutting down on a painfully hot day a few years ago. <\/p>\n

Rising global temperatures to break record highs and cross safety limits in next five years<\/a><\/p>\n

The heat has made air conditioning the new status symbol. Istat, the Italian statistics agency, says that more than half of Italian households now have at least one air-conditioning unit, almost double the level of a decade ago (central air conditioning is still rare). But Italians use AC sparingly because electricity prices are two to three times higher than in Canada and the U.S. They know that running the AC full time could mean sacrificing a beach holiday. <\/p>\n

In Rome, not all tourists avoided marinating in the heat. In the long line to enter the Vatican Museums on Wednesday, Amanda Round and her husband, Toby Thompson, from the Midlands in central England, were all smiles \u2212 even if the hundreds of other tourists around them were not. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re enjoying the heat,\u201d Ms. Round said. \u201cWe had to put the furnace on in our house only two to three weeks ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Tourists queue to fill their bottles at a public fountain displaying still and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4293,4283,4294,1188,4276,1557,147,4275,4288,4289,4285,4277,4274,1131,4292,1294,4287,201,4305,4278,4279,3297,4284,1815,1333,4295,4281,4300,4301,4303,4298,4302,4296,4299,4280,3867,4291,356,4290,4297,27,3869,1138,614,4286,4282,243,4304],"class_list":["post-27260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rome","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-rome","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}