As scorching temperatures grip Europe with highs in the 40s, one British expat says he is struggling to cope in Germany’s heatwave
When I first moved from London to Munich in 2022 to join my German partner, it was just in time for summer. I hadn’t really considered it, but I was swapping the UK’s stop-start sunshine for something radically different, complete with months-long al fresco dining, blue skies that actually stayed blue, and more outdoor bathing areas than you could shake a pretzel at. And just as summer crept into autumn, it was time for Oktoberfest. I was in heaven.
If that first summer felt like an endless Euro-trip, this summer just feels… endless. For me, at least, it’s getting way too hot – too hot to work, sleep, or go out on a run without some sort of medical support team in tow. It feels absurd for a Brit to say this, but I’m already looking forward to winter – and questioning whether I can hack temperatures here on the continent for much longer.
Like much of central Europe, Munich is getting hotter at a faster rate than the global average. The city enjoyed 20 “hot days” – days over 30°C – during my first summer, rising to 25 the following year. We’re already on 11 for this year, having added four since Sunday – and July’s just getting started. The heat’s beginning to feel relentless.
Although Alex enjoys the good consistent weather, he says this summer it feels too hot to work, sleep, or go out on a run (Photo: Supplied)
And there are signs it’s not just me feeling this way. This past week, everyone’s been upgrading their fans. You see the old ones out on the street with signs saying “zu verschenken” – to give away – kind of the German equivalent of taking a bag down the charity shop. They get scooped up within minutes, probably by people who are working on multi-fan set-ups. I caved and bought a fan last summer; now, after admiring friends’ climate-control tech, I’m in the market for a mist-spraying one.
Then there’s my long-suffering German housemate, who I bumped into yesterday, in a daze, waiting for the kitchen tap to run cold. I mumbled something about my new summer coping strategy: sit in it, sit in the heat, be at one with the heat, learn to love the heat. He just stared and retreated into the separate, slightly larger sauna that is his room.
I was born and raised in Kent, so perhaps it is my Britishness that’s making this heat particularly hard to tolerate. Or being from northern Europe: my perpetually red Belgian friend hasn’t been seen or heard from in days. Mid-way through my exposure therapy out on the balcony, my thoughts turn to the gentler, altogether more reasonable summers I used to enjoy in London. I fire up BBC weather. Oh.
My London friends seem to be enjoying the heatwave, but most of my German friends agree it feels like we’re crossing a threshold of bearability here in Munich. And the heat truly is different here. There’s something particularly inescapable and oppressive about the ambient heat – it’s not just baking the top of your head, but emanating from the paving stones, the roads, the buildings. Even the wind is hot, which means sweating doesn’t cool you down.
Alex has noticed fans littering the street as people upgrade theirs for stronger, more efficient models (Photos: Supplied)
Because of this heatwave, everyone’s got their window shutters down – proper blackout, garage-door-type things. We’re all working in dark rooms, disconnected from the outside world, too knackered to head out for a Feierabendbier (post-work drink) – too sun-shy to venture out at all.
And that’s where things, for me, are starting to feel wrong. Say it quietly: is constant sunshine actually enjoyable? Is summer, maybe, possibly, becoming less fun?
Just recently, for instance, Munich celebrated Pride with its annual parade through the city. We all noticed the crowds were smaller than last year – likely because it’s so, so hot. I looked up the official figures: 2024’s attendance was 325,000, while this year drew 250,000. At 28 degrees it’s just too hot for a street party – or at least 75,000 people felt that way, enough to fill the Allianz Arena.
Don’t get me wrong – I really love Munich, and so do the friends and family who’ve visited from back home. Unlike London, this city has a river, the Isar, that you can actually swim in. It’s crystal-clear, fast-running, and ice-cold, flowing straight from the nearby Alps. When it reaches Munich’s biggest park, the English Garden, the city’s bygone planners had the genius to split it into a network of smaller streams, which locals use as lazy rivers – and to cool crates of beer. It’s a god-send in the summer.
Alex often finds the heat suffocating and has to work outside on his balcony to cope as his flat is so hot (Photos: Supplied)
But you could also argue that this city’s not built for these increasingly fierce heatwaves. Munich is car-loving to its core, so parking is generally favoured over tree cover, and the place is absolutely carpeted in tarmac, locking in heat for what feels like days after temperatures recede.
Air conditioning is sparse and balconies are tilted towards the sun – unlike those in southern Europe, where architecture tends to shield people from the heat. It may be time for cities like Munich to compare notes with Seville, Athens, and Rome. Just now, my housemate pushed through the door to announce that his university classes had been cancelled. It’s 36 degrees in the buildings, apparently.
Tomorrow, we’re due a bit of respite: a huge thunderstorm is on the way – another feature of these drawn-out heatwaves that according to many Germans, are becoming more frequent and more intense every year.
The storms cause their own problems. My partner works as cabin crew for Lufthansa, and for the past couple of years, she’s faced a lot more cancellations, delays, extreme turbulence, and sick passengers due to these summer storms. Weather-related flight delays in the summer – all due to thunderstorms – were up 41 per cent across Europe last year, with Germany the most affected.
Germans have this phrase in winter that “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”. Now they’re joking: “Es gibt keine Hitze, nur falsche Kleidung” – “there’s no such thing as heat, just the wrong clothes”. They might be thinking of the 16 “nudist tolerance zones” in Munich, which I have to admit are growing more appealing by the hour. Or they might just be putting a brave face on a summer that is, unbelievably, keeping us all inside.