An Italian friend tells me she intends to move to Ireland to avoid the oppressive summer heat in her home country. After living through the last 10 days of heatwave here, I can understand why.
The mercury was over 30 degrees when we started our family holiday in Bologna in early July, and has been climbing steadily since. We rented a car for a week and watched in morbid fascination as the dashboard gauge crept higher and higher, briefly reading 45 degrees one afternoon in a supermarket car-park in Tuscany.
Mornings are tolerable, even pleasant, but the heat starts to build before noon, and intensifies until after 6pm. It is hard to think, let alone move around, during the worst of those dog day afternoons.
At least as remarkable as the record daytime temperatures recorded in recent weeks are the night-time temperatures. Throughout our time here, it has never dropped below 25 degrees at night – about as hot as the hottest day of an average year in Ireland.
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Two things alleviate the stress of living in such extreme heat – proximity to water and air-conditioning. As holidaymakers we are privileged; our current campsite in northern Italy has two swimming pools and Lake Garda is just a short walk away (so long as you don’t mind the lather of sweat it takes to get there).
In this heat, our mobile home would be unbearable at night without the air-con. Yet you can’t press the remote without wondering if doing so is making things worse by increasing demand for fossil fuels to generate electricity, especially in a country where solar panels are seldom to be seen.
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The locals’ response to the heat is one of resignation rather than shock. Despite the headlines about record temperatures, most people here just adapt. More than ever before, the streets come alive for the evening passeggiata.
Those who can flock to the beach or the lakeshore, setting up camp each day under shade-providing trees from early in the morning to evening. “Che caldo,” they exclaim to each other between espressos and dips in the water.
By the shore, the old man who rents us a paddleboat comments on the lack of air. Because of the reduced water level, you have to go out hundreds of metres before you are fully out of your depth.
When you think about it, Italians have been adapting to high temperatures for centuries. Bologna has 62km of porticoes, covered arcades constructed from the Middle Ages to allow citizens go about their business sheltered from the sun’s glare. A traditional Tuscan farmhouse is built with thick stone walls, and shutters are kept firmly closed in daytime, to keep the interior cool.
Yet the wider effects of hot summers is evident even to the tourist’s eye. In Tuscany, the growing unpredictability of the weather has led to falling water levels in lakes and a reduction in land under cultivation.
By last February, Lake Garda had lost over half its water thanks to hot summers and low winter snowfall. In May, then, much of northern Italy was hit by deadly flooding.
In the late July haze, the lake looks as stunning as ever. Italy, one of my favourite countries, has been great. I’m just not sure I ever want to see it again at these temperatures.
