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ITALIAN HABITS

Nine unmistakable signs that summer has arrived in Italy

With hot and sunny conditions across the country this week, summer seems to have finally arrived in Italy. Besides the weather though, there’s further proof that 'estate' is upon us.

Published: 16 June 2023 17:28 CEST
Nine unmistakable signs that summer has arrived in Italy
People soak up the sun on a public beach near Santa Margherita Ligure, Genova. (Photo by OLIVIER MORIN / AFP)

Awnings, parasols and fans: Italian houses change their appearance

The sun is almost unfailingly scorching during Italy’s summer months, but that doesn’t keep people in the country from enjoying outdoor meals with family and friends. 

As soon as temperatures rise, homeowners rush to roll down awnings and open up parasols, giving their gardens and patios a new look for the season. 

At the same time, fans are quickly pulled out of whatever remote corner of the house they were thrown into the year before and put back in place. 

Grocery shops burst with colour

The summer months mark the return of some beloved types of fruit – from strawberries and cherries to cantaloupes and watermelons, to peaches and apricots.

Embellishing the shelves of grocery shops and food market stands all around the country, these are essential staples of Italians’ summertime diet and many truly can’t get enough of them.

Italian supermarket shelves are a burst of colour during the summer thanks to seasonal fruit. Photo by Wendy Petricioli on Unsplash

The return of sandali and infradito

As the days get hotter, people in Italy do away with closed-toe shoes and opt for lighter footwear such as sandals, espadrilles or moccasins.

Flip-flops also make a comeback as people around the country get out their infradito at the beach.

Summer is the only time of the year when you should wear open-toe shoes, according to Italy’s unwritten rules of fashion etiquette. 

In fact, for reasons that are not entirely clear, wearing a pair of ciabatte before or after the summer season can raise eyebrows among Italians, even though you might think it’s warm enough to wear them.

Late dinners

With days getting longer – in June the sun sets as late as 9.30pm in some areas – people in Italy tend to have dinner later. 

So those living in the north, who are generally known for dining relatively early (around 7.30pm), move dinnertime back by one or even two hours to enjoy the additional sunlight.

In the south of the country, where mealtimes usually happen slightly later all year round, don’t be surprised if dinner doesn’t get started until 10pm or beyond.

People in Italy tend to have dinner later than they usually do in the summer months. Photo by Cory Bjork on Unsplash

Dogged mosquitoes

Mosquitoes are one of the few downsides of the estate italiana as most areas of the country deal with the pesky insects from late May to early September. 

From body sprays and repellents to citronella grass, there are a number of ways you can try to keep zanzare from getting a free meal. But, alas, a few will always make it past your defences with sheer Liam Neesonesque resolve.

Hopeless congestion

Summer is Italy’s peak tourist season, which means that the country’s so-called ‘art cities’ (Venice, Florence, Rome, Verona, etc.) and countless seaside locations are taken over by crowds of tourists, usually to the delight of residents trying to go about their daily lives.

READ ALSO: Five ‘secret’ places in Venice you need to visit

Things generally get more chaotic on Italian roads too, particularly in August, when long traffic jams clog up highways and state roads for hours on end at times. 

Italy’s so-called art cities, including Venice, Rome and Florence, are frequently very crowded during the summer. Photo by Levi van Leeuwen on Unsplash

Cooler bags galore

There’s nothing more quintessentially Italian than a Sunday lunch at the beach, with national tradition requiring that the meal be kept strictly inside a borsa frigo (cooler bag). 

READ ALSO: From spritz to shakerato: Six things to drink in Italy this summer

Word to the wise: never open a cooler bag before lunchtime if you’re hanging around with Italians. Some would faint at the thought of their food “being ruined by the heat”.

Playing cards and Settimana Enigmistica magazines

While the younger beachgoers generally enjoy themselves playing sports, older people go for less physically demanding but equally competitive pastimes, with card games and word puzzles (usually from the iconic Settimana Enigmistica magazine) being by far the most common activities.

Loud Italian music…

As temperatures rise, so does the volume of the speakers in most Italian bars and kiosks. 

While that isn’t necessarily a bad thing per se, brace yourself: the owners usually have fairly questionable music tastes. 

What are some of the other signs that summer has arrived in Italy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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MOVING TO ITALY

Readers recommend: Eight books you must read to understand Italy

After we published our own recommendations of some of the best books to read for those considering a move to Italy, The Local's readers weighed in with suggestions of your own.

Published: 25 April 2024 17:24 CEST
Readers recommend: Eight books you must read to understand Italy

In our previous guide to some of the best books to read before moving to Italy, we asked our readers to get in touch with your recommendations.

A number of you responded with your favourite reads about Italy; here’s what you suggested:

Ciao Bella – Six Take Italy

An anonymous reader describes this as “a delightful book about an Australian radio presenter who takes her husband and four children Bologna for a year which turns into two years (one being Covid).”

Kate Langbroek’s comic memoir “had me laughing and crying,” they write.

A Small Place in Italy

An apt choice for those considering their own rural Italian renovation project, Sam Cross recommends this book by British writer Eric Newby about buying, remodelling and moving into a cottage in the Tuscan countryside.

Cross also recommends Newby’s earlier work, ‘Love and War in the Appennines’, about his time as a British prisoner of war captured in Italy by the Germans in WWII.

READ ALSO: Eight of the best books to read before moving to Italy

Here, the author tells of his escape assisted by local partisans, “including a girl, Wanda, who became his future wife. A beautiful story,” says Cross.

The Italians

The Italians is written by veteran Italy correspondent John Hooper, who formerly wrote for the Guardian and is now the Economist’s Italy and Vatican reporter.

From politics to family traditions and the Mafia, the book tackles a range of aspects of Italian history and culture without getting lost in the weeds.

Simone in Rome describes it as “the best single volume on Italian customs and culture there is”.

READ ALSO: Nine things to expect if you move to rural Italy

Venice

It may be more than six decades old, but Jan Morris’s Venice is still considered one of the definitive English-language works on the lagoon city.

Book, Venice, library

A woman reads a book in Venice’s famous Acqua Alta library. Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Though a work of non-fiction, the book has been compared to Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited for its nostalgic, evocative tone.

“A personal view, beautifully written,” recommends reader Mary Austern.

Thin Paths

Described as a mix of travel book and memoir, Thin Paths is written by Julia Blackburn, who moved with her husband into a small house in the hills of Liguria in 1999.

Despite arriving with no Italian, over time she befriended her elderly neighbours, who took her into their confidence and shared stories of the village’s history under the control of a tyrannical landowner and the outbreak of World War II.

“Write it down for us,” they told her, “because otherwise it will all be lost.”

READ ALSO: Six things foreigners should expect if they live in Rome

In Other Words

If you’re currently learning Italian, consider Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words / In Altre Parole, which discusses the writer’s journey towards mastery of Italian through full immersion.

Reader Brett says, “The book is written in both Italian and English, presented on opposite pages, so it’s also a nice learning tool!”

Lahiri has since written Racconti Romani, or Roman Tales, a series of short stories set in and around Rome riffing off Alberto Moravia’s 1954 short story collection of the same name.

A Rosie Life in Italy

Ginger Hamilton says she would “highly recommend the ‘A Rosie Life in Italy’ series by Rosie Meleady.”

It’s “the delightfully written true story of an Irish couple’s move to Italy, purchase of a home, the process of rehabbing it, and their life near Lago di Trasimeno.”

The Dark Heart of Italy

Reader William describes The Dark Heart of Italy by Tobias Jones as an “excellent” book.

The product of a three-year journey across the Italy, Jones takes on the darker side of Italian culture, from organised crime to excessive bureaucracy.

Though it was published in 2003, Dark Heart stands the test of time: “twenty-odd years old but the essential truth of it hasn’t changed,” William writes.

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