Just returned from a two-week trip to Italy, where we stayed exclusively in hotels rated 4 stars"per my wife's insistence. The country was in the grip of a heat wave during our visit, and unfortunately, the air conditioning in Rome and Florence barely held up. For our final two days in Venice, temperatures hovered around 90F, yet our supposedly air-conditioned room never dropped below 28C (about 82F). It was stifling. Locals kept saying how unusual the weather was for this time of year.