I know some people wear earplugs on airplanes or at rock concerts, but I never bothered to use them. When flying to Italy in May, our airline gave us a handy little pouch that contained some earplugs. I didn’t think I would need them on my trip, but I saved them just in case. I quickly learned that they are one of the best tools you can have when traveling to a warm urban place, especially for light sleepers like me.
Our first destination was Rome. We stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast, but our windows opened into a large outdoor atrium surrounded by other peoples’ windows. It was in the dead of summer and the B&B had no air conditioning, so keeping the windows closed at night was out of the question. Everyone in the surrounding buildings had their windows open as well, and the high walls of the atrium caused loud echoes. We heard people talking, singing, watching TV, and cooking until all hours of the night.
I quickly remembered I had earplugs in my bag. I stuffed them in my ears and was able to ignore the noise and get a good night’s sleep. They didn’t help on the night that someone cooked some foul-smelling seafood dish, but the noise was manageable.
Our next stop was Perugia, a quaint college town about halfway between Rome and Florence. It is a very small town, but it is loaded with college students. Unfortunately, our quiet, family-run hotel, which also had no air conditioning, was just down the street from a popular college bar. Our nightly soundtrack was thumping music and shouting coeds. Even with the earplugs in, I could still hear some noise, but they certainly took a huge edge off and allowed me to sleep.
It was no surprise to find the same thing in Florence. We were staying in a hostel with a window facing an atrium, and the next-door neighbor kept his Italian television on full blast very late every evening. No A.C. here either, so we had to keep the window open. For those two nights, the earplugs were my salvation from bad Italian sitcoms.
I wish I had been wise enough to take some with me to Paris the year before; I had the same exact situation happen when staying at a hotel with no air conditioning (my window faced an indoor atrium, too), but didn’t have any earplugs then. I slept horribly; it didn’t help that they were having a heat wave. I later learned that you can buy earplugs at just about any pharmacy abroad.
If you are going to be in a warm and urban locale in the summer, check and see if your accommodations have air conditioning. If not, stock up on earplugs! You may look nerdy, but you will sleep like a rock.
