If anyone is coming to Italy in the next few days to a week, be aware much of the country has had heavy snow, with ice and sub zero temperatures to follow. You need snow chains for your car. Beautiful to look at though!This message has been edited. Last edited by: TourMama,
Caroline that is incredibly beautiful! I know a pain to travel through but if I had a good book, some wine and no where to be, I think that might be where I'd want to be stuck.
Kim, I am lucky! The schools in town are officially closed for two days so we can hole up, and I have food and of course wine in, so all okay for now. Have just put my boots on to go an make a snowman! It is expected to stay icy and with a number of bursts of snow for quite a while though so may become an issue for travellers.Tuscany was in chaos when we had serious snow last year,but hopefully the authorities have learned from that and have better plans in place this year.
Caroline...Bagni looks absolutely lovely in the snow but as nice as it is to look at I'm happy to be here in sunny warm Fla.I can't drive in the snow and the Brennero near Vico was icy even when I was there 3 weeks ago.Perhaps the ice more than the snow scares me! Great photo though!!
Posts: 1047 | Location: The Space Coast of Florida | Registered: 27 January 2006
Gorgeous photos Caroline and Letizia! It's so much fun when you don't have to drive to work in the snow....I love days when I can stay indoors, watch tv or read a good book and enjoy the beauty of the snow!!
It's so much fun when you don't have to drive to work in the snow....I love days when I can stay indoors, watch tv or read a good book and enjoy the beauty of the snow
I am surprised by your sentiments, Pokey because I see you are from MA where it must snow regularly. I see snow as an inconvenient form of water that has to be manually removed from the driveway. In the 32 years I have lived and worked in St Paul, MN, work has been cancelled 2 days for snow; it had been canceled more often for the schools so that at times made day care for my children a problem. Schcool has never been cancelled for more thn one day. Once the company did let us go home at 2 in the afternoon because it had snowed over 6 inches after we came to work in the morning.
If I had been planning a trip to Italy and was greeting with the snow in those pictures on arrival, I would have felt like my vacation money was wasted because I can look at the white stuff at home for free.
Posts: 5040 | Location: St Paul, MN | Registered: 10 February 2006
Yup, it just stopped snowing here in Piedmont too after 5 days. It sure does look pretty but coming so late after being so dry did quite a bit of damage, we spend 7 hours on Monday removing the fallen trees and debris off our driveway, needed a good prune anyway. Getting those snow shovel muscles worked out again
If I had been planning a trip to Italy and was greeting with the snow in those pictures on arrival, I would have felt like my vacation money was wasted because I can look at the white stuff at home for free.
dragonpat don't worry we don't get anything like that during the tourist season!
Our neighbor in Gaiole sent pictures of our house in the snow....beautiful but it looks a little cold. And interesting because here at our home in Idaho we would have 2 or 3 feet of snow now and there is absolutely none. Ah well, every year is different.
Posts: 568 | Location: USA | Registered: 30 November 2004
dragonpat don't worry we don't get anything like that during the tourist season!
In the past I usually visited Italy at the end of Feb because that was my daughter's spring break. I love how uncrowded it is and the mild weather in the past. I have not visited any place north of Florence though. I keep on hoping for maybe visiting Venice in March, but a family emergency has come up and I am not sure if I will be able to go. Once I visited Campania in mid-May and flew out of Rome at the end of May. That was way too hot and crowded for me.
Posts: 5040 | Location: St Paul, MN | Registered: 10 February 2006
Here in Siena, all schools are still closed and thousands are still without power after 50+ hours. No power means no heat for most houses. Luckily we got internet back last night. Snow is beautiful but now we have 5+ cm. of ice everywhere as it is -7C. More cold and snow coming today. Hopefully they will get the generators up and running for those without (Castellina in Chiantim Chiusdino, San Piero and many other areas) and then we can all just stay home and have family fun (monopolu, life, indomimando, cooking)
We have snow here but the real issue is the cold. Normally around here it should be warm enough to barely have the heat on this time of year. Instead it's on almost 20 hours a day.
Posts: 2096 | Location: Medio Vastese | Registered: 07 March 2006
I am in Italy now. We were in Rome from Sunday to Thursday. It was cold, rained almost every day, but it didn't really stop us from doing what we wanted to do. Yesterday we drove to San Benedetto del Tronto (on the Adriatic). We had a little snow coming out of the Gran Sasso tunnel, but nothing too bad for a couple of Western Pennsylvanians who are used to driving in snow. By the time we got to our hotel, it was back to just rain.
We went out to dinner at a great seafood restaurant in Giulianova with friends last night, and it was still just raining. But we woke up this morning to about an inch of snow, and the snow is continuing to fall. I have been in San Benedetto in February before, and it has always been cold but sunny. We walked to lunch at a little place on the beach for lunch(one of the few places on the beach open this time of year) and let me tell you, it was a bit disconcerting to walk along the area known as La Riviera delle Palme and see the beach and palm trees covered with (now) about 3-4 inches of snow! There were other people having lunch at the same time, but the owner told us he would be closing after lunch.
We are scheduled to drive back to Rome Saturday morning. Our flight home is Sunday. I am a little worried about going over the mountains, and also whether our flight will be cancelled. The car rental place gave us chains for our car - that should have beenmy first clue, LOL! I doubt the the airport has de-icing equipment either, but having to stay an extra day or two wouldn't be so bad.
Posts: 407 | Location: Pittsburgh, PA suburb | Registered: 04 June 2005
Mary, I hope all is well. Getting into or around Rome is impossible it seems. They say there are 280 km (173.983 miles) of roads blocked with cars in Rome.
This is our Piazza today, to free the cars and street they accumulate the snow in the middle of the square resulting in a huge white mount... I guess it will melt in Spring
It looks beautiful but I know what a pain it is to live it (being from Buffalo). That said, I will take snow over rain any day. You can still walk around in snow and stay mostly dry. I feel like in rain you just get soaked and it makes me miserable. Since we have had so little here I am actually missing it a little. One good storm would be enough for me.
Originally posted by Cristina: Mary, I hope all is well. Getting into or around Rome is impossible it seems. They say there are 280 km (173.983 miles) of roads blocked with cars in Rome.
Cristina, because both A24 and A25 were closed to all traffic, we had to get back to Rome from San Benedetto del Tronto by driving south on A14 to near Cerignola, then taking A16 to near Napoli, and then A1 to Roma/Fiumicino. So what is normally about a 3 hour trip took closer to 6-1/2 hours. But we had no problems. There was snow is some areas, but the roads had been cleared and not much other traffic.
We were not expecting it to be warm in Italy. I have been there in February before, so I know that it can be cold and rainy. But I certainly never expected this much snow! We are back home now, an area where we normally have lots of snow in winter. This winter, however, it is much warmer than usual. One day while I was gone it actually was 60 degrees F (15 C).
This photo was taken from our hotel room on Friday morning. By the end of the day, the snow had accumulated to about 5 inches or more on the ground.
Posts: 407 | Location: Pittsburgh, PA suburb | Registered: 04 June 2005
We were skyping with cousins in Sicily yesterday - no snow there. But then we skyped to one of the kids who lives in Rome... She held her computer up to the window - you could see the heavy snow on the trees. She later sent us pictures overlooking Rome, towards the Vatican - everything in snow.
She said the Colosseum was especially pretty in the snow.
Posts: 454 | Location: San Diego | Registered: 26 November 2006
Pretty ... ?!? At this moment the streets in the north part of Rome are covered in ice. Every hour there are about 30 casualties who require assitance in First Aid, having slipped on ice.
What is the forecast for this weekend in the Veneto? I'm driving down from Munich on Friday, returning Sunday. Weather.com keeps changing it's mind on snow....
Here are more amazing pictures from across Europe, starting with the snow-covered Colosseum, which apparently was actually closed because of the weather. The pictures are beautiful, but I'm glad to be looking at them from a distance!
Here is a gallery of before and after pictures of Urbino. Where you see the pictures with the left side without snow, right side with, you can drag the dividing line to see the whole view one way or the other.
What a neat effect, Andrew -- thanks for sharing that.
I heard something about people having to huddle under blankets in their homes because of govt. regulations about how much heat they can use in a day. Is that correct?
I do remember once in early October when we were staying just outside Venice, the weather was unseasonably cold, but the B&B owner told us she was not allowed to turn on her heat at that time of year no matter how much we were shivering.
Yes, it is true that there are regulations about heating. Each municipality has a climatic class, stating the dates and how long per day heating can be turned on. For example, a mountain town may have no limits while Florence is in climatic class D, that is heating is allowed from Nov. 1st to Apr. 15th, for no longer than 12 hours per day. Hospitals are not included in this rule and mayors may authorize earlier or later heating, or longer time, according to special necessities.
Private homes must stick to these rules. If you have individual heating probably you can dodge rules a bit (not too much as fuel is really expensive), but if an apartment block has collective heating it is quite likely that the manager will stick to the letter, switching on and off at preset times according to maximum time allowed.
I found that I could heat individual rooms with an odorless oil heater using Zybron fuel. These heaters called 'Ruby" have been available the last couple of years at Brico stores (69-79euros) along with the fuel in large 5 gallon containers. I guess that's a way to try to stay warm also. They do not use electricity.
Posts: 1047 | Location: The Space Coast of Florida | Registered: 27 January 2006
It's so much fun when you don't have to drive to work in the snow....I love days when I can stay indoors, watch tv or read a good book and enjoy the beauty of the snow!! 
