A spell of warm weather in the summer is often appreciated, but excessively high temperatures can be just too much. The Journal spoke to Irish people living abroad or on holidays in European countries hit by the Cerberus heatwave
European countries have been hit over the last week by the Cerberus heatwave, which has brought oppressively high temperatures in the 30s and 40s.
Some found the heat more bearable than others but all have adopted various strategies to try to cope with the heat, from staying indoors and abstaining from cooking hot food to cooling clothes down in a freezer and planning to move to a cooler country. Patrick, who lives in Verona, is spending the summer near Palermo in Sicily and got married earlier this month – “luckily, the week before the heat struck”.
It’s fairly roasting. Everyone’s showering once or twice a day. We’ve all got our factor 50 on and we’ve got mosquito spray because the river goes through Florence and anywhere near the river is really bad for mosquitoes and with the heat, it made it even worse.” Like others suffering from the heat, their apartment does not have air conditioning.
“Definitely Irish people are suffering in the heat and it’s important to remind people to always stay hydrated, and if people are drinking alcohol in the sun, to remember that it hits them a lot harder than when drinking not in the sun.
As the temperatures climbed during their holiday, even the host at their accommodation, a life-long local, told Larry he was struggling with the heat. On the last day before their flight home, the couple spent time waiting in a museum with air conditioning because of the intense heat outside. We can’t even go to Mass in the early afternoon and must only go out at night.” John said he now planning to move with his wife to Hungary, her home country.
She said the outside door handle is too hot to touch directly and their rental car is “like getting into a hot sauna – it momentarily takes your breath away”. Not far away is Maria, who is a retiree who has been living in Torrevieja with her husband for almost 20 years. Maria prefers the warm weather to Irish rain but said that it’s important to take care.
In the inland Spanish capital of Madrid is Jane, who has been living in the city for several years and is 27 weeks pregnant – “it doesn’t make it any easier”, she said. “We try to get out in the morning for a walk because it’s a little bit cooler around 7 or 8 am. From 9 am, the sun is starting to come up, so you start to feel the heat more.”Further north, Rachael is living and working in Berlin, where temperatures are lower than in more southerly countries like Spain and Italy but still reached 35 degrees at the weekend. Rachael was also on holiday last week in the south of France, which was “ferociously hot”.
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