Rome's weather is always good — a characteristically optimistic Roman assertion that their city enjoys superior conditions. Used both literally about Rome's mild Mediterranean climate and figuratively to suggest that things in Rome always work out, even if imperfectly.
Rome's climate — characterized by hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters — has been celebrated since antiquity as one of the city's great natural gifts. Classical writers including Cicero and Pliny praised the Latium hills' temperate air, and the city's position between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Apennine mountains gives it a moderating influence that northern Italian cities lack. Grand Tour travelers from Britain and northern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries arrived in Rome explicitly fleeing their gray climates, reinforcing the city's reputation for agreeable weather. Romans exploit this reputation with cheerful self-congratulation, pointing to their winters as proof of divine favor — a theological argument with obvious appeal in a city that houses the Vatican. The saying also functions as a more general expression of Roman contentment: even when things go wrong, the Roman inclination is to find the sunny side.
The favorable climate of Rome was one of the primary reasons emperors chose to reside in the city year-round, unlike the mobile courts of the Republic, and classical geographers attributed Rome's world dominance partly to the character-building effects of its temperate but stimulating weather.
A Roman reassures a visiting friend worried about the forecast
Ma lascia stare il telegiornale — er tempo de Roma è sempre bono.
Forget the news — Rome's weather is always good.
A Roman expat in London misses home
Qui è novembre e fa già buio alle quattro. Er tempo de Roma è sempre bono, manca solo quello.
It's November here and already dark at four. Rome's weather is always good — that's all I miss.
A tour guide welcomes a group on a slightly cloudy morning
Non preoccupatevi per le nuvole — er tempo de Roma è sempre bono, vedrete.
Don't worry about the clouds — Rome's weather is always good, you'll see.
A Roman defends his city against a Milanese colleague
A Milano avete la nebbia fino a marzo. Da noi no — er tempo de Roma è sempre bono.
In Milan you have fog until March. Not us — Rome's weather is always good.