Country guide
Italy
Rome, Florence and Venice anchor the classics; the coasts, lakes and food regions reward every return trip.
Currency
EUR
Language
Italian
English
Widely spoken
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
Power
Type C / F / L
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+39
Destinations
Assisi
A hill town whose Basilica di San Francesco holds one of Europe's greatest fresco cycles, because the man who owned nothing is buried underneath it.
✓ best Mar-OctBologna
Italy's greatest eating city, and a medieval one you can cross end to end without leaving the shade.
✓ best Feb-Jun, Aug-NovCagliari
A three-thousand-year-old capital with a fortress on the hill, flamingos on the lagoon and a long white beach on the city bus map.
✓ best all yearCapri
Vertical limestone, imperial ruins and the most concentrated glamour in the Mediterranean on one small island - and the crush that comes with it goes home on the last boat.
✓ best all yearCatania
An entire baroque city rebuilt out of the lava of Etna, the volcano that destroyed it.
✓ best Sep-JunCinque Terre
Five medieval fishing villages welded to a vertical coast, joined by a footpath, a boat and a train, and almost nothing else.
✓ best Mar-SepDolomites (Cortina d'Ampezzo)
The most theatrical rock in the Alps, with cable cars, staffed huts and wartime iron ladders that put you inside it without a rope.
✓ best May, SepFlorence
The densest concentration of Renaissance art anywhere, in a centre you can cross on foot.
✓ best Mar-SepLake Como
The Alps fall straight into 400 m of water, with three centuries of villa gardens terraced along the edge.
✓ best MarLake Garda (Sirmione)
One lake, two climates: palm-lined Mediterranean south, alpine wind-tunnel north, all of it linked by public ferry.
✓ best Mar-OctLecce
The most extravagantly carved city in southern Italy, on flat ground between two seas with the whole of the Salento inside an hour.
✓ best Nov-SepMatera
One of the longest continuously inhabited places on earth, emptied by decree as a national disgrace within living memory, and now the most astonishing skyline in southern Italy.
✓ best Mar-NovMilan
Italy's capital of fashion, design and money - and a far better art city than its buttoned-up reputation suggests.
✓ best Mar-OctNaples
Italy's rawest great city - the best cheap eating in the country, with the Roman world's finest ruins on its doorstep.
✓ best Mar-Jun, Sep-OctPalermo
A Norman capital built by Arab craftsmen and eaten standing up in the market - the least polished and most layered of Italy's great cities.
✓ best Feb-OctPerugia
An Etruscan hill capital where public escalators climb through a buried medieval quarter to reach the main square.
✓ best Mar-OctPisa
The most famous half day in Italy, attached to a scruffy student city that most of its visitors never bother to look at.
✓ best Mar-AugPuglia (Bari)
Two coastlines, olive trees older than most of the churches, and the best frugal cooking in Italy, at a pace the north gave up decades ago.
✓ best Feb-DecRome
No other city stacks the ancient, papal and modern worlds this densely into one walkable centre, and still runs as a loud, ordinary, opinionated capital.
✓ best Mar-Jun, Sep-OctSiena
The city that lost to Florence and was therefore never rebuilt, so its Gothic centre still runs on seventeen neighbourhoods that have not stopped competing since the Middle Ages.
✓ best Mar-SepTaormina
An ancient theatre framing a live volcano, one medieval street above the sea, swimming coves below a cable car - Sicily's most beautiful small town, and entirely aware of it.
✓ best Feb-SepVenice
A maritime empire's capital preserved whole, with water where the roads should be.
✓ best Mar-Jun, Sep-OctVerona
The one Roman arena that never stopped filling with an audience, at the heart of a river-bend city where Romans, warlords, Venetians and Habsburgs each built and almost nobody knocked anything down.
✓ best Mar-OctThe sweet-spot windows
Good weather, thinner crowds, better prices: the windows worth aiming for.
| Where | When | Why it works | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central (Rome, Florence, Tuscany) | Apr-May, Sep-Oct | Rome/Tuscany mild, wildflowers or harvest, comfy sightseeing | Jul-Aug hot + packed |
| The north (Venice, Milan, Dolomites) | May-Jun, Sep | Lakes, Venice, Dolomites at their best before summer haze | Aug = locals away, closures |
| The south (Naples, Amalfi, Sicily) | May, Sep-Oct | Amalfi/Sicily warm, sea warm in Sep, fewer crowds than Aug | Beach clubs close from Oct |
Climate zones, month by month
Italy has 23 distinct climate zones. The right month depends on where in the country you're going.
Assisi Umbria →
✓ Best Mar-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Bologna Emilia-Romagna →
✓ Best Feb-Jun, Aug-Nov
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Cagliari Sardinia →
✓ Best all year
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Capri Bay of Naples →
✓ Best all year
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Catania Sicily →
✓ Best Sep-Jun
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Cinque Terre Liguria →
✓ Best Mar-Sep
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Dolomites (Cortina d'Ampezzo) →
✓ Best May, Sep · ✗ Avoid Nov-Feb
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Florence Tuscany →
✓ Best Mar-Sep
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Lake Como →
✓ Best Mar
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Lake Garda (Sirmione) →
✓ Best Mar-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Lecce Salento →
✓ Best Nov-Sep
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Matera Basilicata →
✓ Best Mar-Nov
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Milan →
✓ Best Mar-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Naples →
✓ Best Mar-Jun, Sep-Oct
Conditions Jan Mild & wet · Feb Mild · Mar Mild spring · Apr Pleasant · May-Jun Warm · Jul-Aug Hot · Sep Warm, sea warm · Oct Mild autumn · Nov-Dec Mild & wet
Cards tinted by verified verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Palermo Sicily →
✓ Best Feb-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Perugia Umbria →
✓ Best Mar-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Pisa Tuscany →
✓ Best Mar-Aug
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Puglia (Bari) →
✓ Best Feb-Dec
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Rome →
✓ Best Mar-Jun, Sep-Oct
Conditions Jan-Feb Cool · Mar Mild spring · Apr Easter, pleasant · May-Jun Warm · Jul-Aug Hot · Sep Warm, harvest · Oct Mild autumn · Nov Cool & wet · Dec Cool
Cards tinted by verified verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Siena Tuscany →
✓ Best Mar-Sep
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Taormina Sicily →
✓ Best Feb-Sep
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Venice →
✓ Best Mar-Jun, Sep-Oct
Conditions Jan Cold & foggy · Feb Cold, Carnival · Mar Mild spring · Apr Pleasant · May-Jun Warm · Jul Hot & humid · Aug Hot · Sep Mild, harvest · Oct Cool autumn · Nov Cold & wet · Dec Cold & foggy
Cards tinted by verified verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
Verona Veneto →
✓ Best Mar-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions