Under the Italian Sun

Living with a Sun That Never Takes a Holiday

If you stop at an Italian supermarket on a scorching summer afternoon, you’ll soon notice that the most coveted parking spaces are rarely the ones closest to the entrance. Everyone seems to be aiming for the same scruffy little tree tucked away at the far end of the car park. Walking an extra couple of minutes suddenly feels like a bargain when your steering wheel no longer resembles a cast-iron frying pan.

Years ago, I caught myself doing exactly the same thing. These days, my eyes instinctively search for shade before they look for an empty parking space. It’s not something I would ever have done before. Sometimes, becoming part of Italy happens in the most unexpected ways.

More than twenty-five years ago, I saw the Italian sun very differently. To be honest, I couldn’t make much sense of the way Italians dealt with it. The moment summer arrived in earnest, shutters would close all over the village. My instinct was exactly the opposite. I would fling open every window, convinced I was letting fresh air into the house, while the entire street seemed determined to shut the daylight out. It took me several summers and a living room that I’d accidentally turned into a fan-assisted oven, before I realised that the “fresh” air outside was actually far hotter than the air inside. From that day on, I never looked at those closed shutters in quite the same way again.

At first, I thought Italians were protecting themselves from the sun. Only later did I realise they had simply made peace with it. They knew it inside out.

Growing up in Northern Europe, as I did, you learn to treat sunshine like an honoured guest. After months of grey skies and damp mornings, the first warm day of spring sends everyone outdoors. Doors are thrown open, faces turn instinctively towards the light, and every café terrace suddenly looks irresistible. Sunshine means freedom.

In Italy, the sun has never been a guest. It belongs to the house. It ripens grapes, turns olive groves into shimmering shades of silver-green and draws millions of visitors every year. Yet the very same sun dries up streams, transforms a short walk into an endurance test and has been teaching people, for thousands of years, to think carefully about the way they build their homes. Its influence is everywhere.

Long before the Romans built their magnificent villas, the Etruscans had already discovered that a house had to do far more than keep out the rain. It had to retain precious warmth during winter and keep relentless heat at bay throughout summer. The Romans refined the idea with courtyards, colonnades, rainwater basins and natural ventilation. Rather than fighting the climate, they designed their homes to work with it. That philosophy never disappeared.

Today, visitors admire thick stone walls, narrow streets, small windows and wooden shutters as charming pieces of Italian heritage. The people who built them saw something entirely different. These weren’t picturesque features. They were practical solutions that made it possible to survive August without melting. Which is why I find it fascinating that we now talk about passive cooling, climate adaptation and sustainable architecture as though they were revolutionary ideas. Here in Italy, many of them have been quietly in use for well over two thousand years.

The sun was never the enemy. It was the architect.

But its influence didn’t stop at buildings. It also dictated the rhythm of everyday life. Anyone wandering through an Italian village on a blazing July afternoon could be forgiven for wondering where everyone has gone. The narrow streets are almost deserted, shutters are firmly closed, and the chairs in the piazza sit patiently beneath the generous shade of an ancient plane tree. Only the relentless chorus of cicadas betrays the fact that life hasn’t disappeared. It has simply stepped out of the sun for a while. That apparent stillness isn’t emptiness. It’s part of the same centuries-old conversation between people and nature that shaped the houses themselves.

Stay a little longer and the village slowly begins to stir again. A shutter creaks open somewhere. The clink of coffee cups drifts from a nearby café. A Vespa buzzes through a narrow alley. A neighbour stops to chat with someone passing by, in no particular hurry. Children reclaim the square, terraces fill once more, and conversations seem to lose all sense of urgency. It feels as though the day begins for a second time.

Only then do you understand why Italians rarely sit down to dinner early in summer. For centuries, the sun, not the clock, has set the pace of the day. For hours it has warmed not only the air, but rooftops, façades and cobbled streets. When it finally slips behind the hills, something changes. The temperature barely drops, yet the heat somehow stops attacking you. Shade slowly takes over, and the village seems to breathe again.

I’ve always admired how naturally Italians seem to accept that rhythm, although I have to confess I’ve never fully mastered it myself. While many Italians climb into a car that’s been baking in the sun without appearing remotely bothered, I unapologetically set the air conditioning to 16°C. That, incidentally, raises more than a few eyebrows. Most Italians prefer to keep the temperature much higher. Anything too cold is believed to cause a frescata – that dreaded blast of cold air blamed for everything from a stiff neck to a streaming cold or, more dramatically, a grown man collapsing onto the sofa for several days in theatrical misery. I’m happy to take that risk. By the time I step out of the car, I’m practically frozen solid. Then I slowly thaw while doing my shopping. It’s hardly glamorous, but it works remarkably well. On days when the thermometer edges past forty degrees, I’m convinced the inventor of air conditioning deserves a posthumous Nobel Prize for Human Comfort.

Yet despite my affection for that icy stream of air, I have gradually found myself living more and more like an Italian. I arrange appointments earlier in the day. I instinctively choose the shady side of the street. I no longer march straight across a sun-drenched piazza when there’s a line of trees offering an easier route. Without ever consciously deciding to, my daily rhythm has changed as well. Nobody explained it to me. The sun simply taught me.

The same pattern reveals itself across the countryside. Drive through Umbria or Tuscany early in the morning and you’ll find builders, farmers and gardeners already hard at work. By the time the sun reaches its fiercest point, the hardest part of the day is often behind them. In recent years several Italian regions have even introduced regulations temporarily banning heavy outdoor labour during periods of extreme heat. On paper, that sounds like modern legislation. In reality, it simply reflects a way of life that has existed here for generations. You don’t beat the sun. You respect it.

In Northern Europe, we tend to organise our days around the clock. We meet at nine, have lunch at twelve and eat dinner at six, regardless of the temperature outside. Here, people still look up first. They look at the sky. At the position of the sun. At the shade slowly creeping across the olive groves. At the shimmering heat rising above the wheat fields. Only then does the rest of the day fall into place.

Heat does more than raise the temperature. It quietly works its way beneath your skin. You notice it in traffic, where patience evaporates almost as quickly as a puddle after an August shower. You notice it in yourself when the smallest irritation suddenly feels far larger than it deserves. I’ve caught myself becoming shorter-tempered on the hottest days too. Shade offers more than relief from the heat. Sometimes it cools people down as much as the air around them.

As summers become hotter across Europe, this centuries-old way of building suddenly feels strikingly modern. The villages we once admired simply for their beauty now reveal themselves to be astonishingly future-proof. New homes in Italy are equipped with heat pumps, solar panels and state-of-the-art insulation. Yet you’ll still find external shutters, pergolas, deep roof overhangs and carefully positioned trees playing exactly the same role they’ve played for centuries. Modern technology hasn’t replaced traditional knowledge. If anything, it has confirmed its value.

That’s where I see one of the biggest differences between Northern and Southern Europe. We often try to cool a building after the heat has already entered. Here, the process begins long before that. On the drawing board. By creating shade before the sun reaches the walls. By encouraging air to circulate before a fan becomes necessary. By planting trees before switching on an air conditioner. Prevention rather than correction. It sounds like a small distinction, yet it makes an enormous difference to the amount of energy needed to keep a house comfortable.

Beneath the very same sun that shone on the Etruscans, we’re once again searching for ways to build cooler homes and more liveable cities. Many of the solutions attracting renewed attention today have quietly been part of everyday life in Italy for centuries. Generations of observing, adapting and refining have produced a remarkable body of practical knowledge that suddenly feels more relevant than ever.

Years ago, I went looking for the sun. These days, I look for the shade. I park beneath that scruffy little tree at the far end of the car park. I close the shutters before the afternoon heat reaches the house. Without really noticing, I’ve started organising my days around the movement of the sun. Italy has taught me far more than a language. It has taught me how to live with the climate, rather than constantly trying to outsmart it.