We are in Day 4 based in Veneto region. The feeling so far tells me there must be some basic way of living we failed to grasp.
We travelled to France extensively in summer and in Spain some other years. Never had massive miscalculation like how we had in the past few days.
Activities for kids:
DH is working in the day at the holiday house this week. So until he's off next week, I tried to take DCs out but not going out more than 30 mins drive radius (we are not close to beach). Usually in France, we were always able to find activities or a decent size park where something going on for kids. I managed two weeks in Southern France and barely ran out of things to plan for them in the day.
While this week, I couldn't find any decent places operating during the day time to allow kids play/engaged in activities. It seems a lot of places aimed at children are not open until Friday afternoon through the weekend only. Some others only open from 5pm onwards. I'm thinking it might be because of the heat in the day and the cost of running air con is too high? But surely the Italian children need something to keep occupied during school holidays? What did I miss here?
Lunch for being out-and-about:
Usually in our summer holiday, we were always able to find decent sandwiches in local bakeries or even just some simple food in supermarket. We tried to get some readily made bite-size pizza, packed sandwiches and sandwich rolls. The kids hated them and I had to convince them it's not that bad whilst I could barely finish them myself - the flavour is strange and the bread was soggy. Looking around, there doesn't seem to be a wide ranges of choices for sandwiches or we just missed it? What do Italian family take as lunch for picnic?
Air Con:
There's a law passed 2 years ago forbidding any indoor household keep room temperature lower than 27C. But the flat we are staying is fair size. There are two air cons in the flat but they are set (password controlled by the owner) so that we struggle to keep the room cool enough to allow the kids to fall asleep. Is this a norm now in Italy?