Summer greetings (from Italy)

Hi everyone!

I visited Italy some weeks ago and wanted to tell you my experiences for you to know if you are planning a trip there.

First I stayed in North in a little mountain village close to Milan, and I found breathing easy outside (though there was pollen which affected my friend but not me). Inside, however, I had to use much extra medicine since the building was old, but I survived even the nights. The weather was lovely and mountains great! The second week I spend in Naples, and there the situation was up-side down. The building was from the 18th century but the air quality was surprisingly good - only one room made me cough so we had to keep the door to that room closed all the time. However, every time I stepped outside the building I had to take double reliever right away, and keep taking the doses often (of course I already had doubled my Symbicort). The traffic was so bad that the air quality was poor and so I kept coughing and stopping for the reliever - but managed to enjoy my stay All together, I had a very nice holiday in Italy and I'm happy I went there - with all my medication that kept me breathing

Yesterday I came home from an other summer trip. The location was a lovely place in country-side and I had planned to sleep in a cottage. When I entered the cottage, I noticed the smell of wood in it and soon had to escape. Well, I found an other place to stay: a stone-building. I got a room from a cellar, and slept there one night. However, I could sleep only 3 hours due to my asthma symptoms, and later I found out that the room was next to showers which made the air too humid. I also was told by an other asthmatic that there was some mold in the building. So I had to find a new place once again. To make a long story short, I finally found a building (less than 10 years old) that I could breath in, and from then on I had a wonderfull holiday. But due to all the mold I had already breathed in, I was more sensitive to the nature's mold, and as the weather was rainy, I kept coughing outside. And so once again I've had a week with plenty of reliver and Symbicort, and with much fun with friends

Travelling is fun, especially in summer, though with asthma it requires imagination, patience, medicines and sense of humour. I'm happy to travel and still it's nice to be back home once again - maybe I can now finish coughing!

I wish you all good holidays with not-too-bad asthma symptoms!