For the markets, the lights and what happens on 25 December, see our guide to Christmas in Florence — this page is the practical month around it, and Florence in winter covers the season as a whole.

On the 6th the lights come down and on the 8th the city empties overnight. Our guide to Florence in January picks up from there — the sales, the price collapse, and the one week to avoid.

The Two Halves of December

Almost everything worth knowing about December follows from one fact: the month contains both the cheapest and one of the most expensive weeks of the Florentine year, about ten days apart.

If you have any choice at all, come in the first half. The week of 8 to 15 December is arguably the single best week to visit Florence all year: the lighting is on, the crowds are not, the weather is no worse than it will be in January, and you are paying off-season rates for a decorated city.

The one wrinkle in that week is 8 December itself, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which is a national public holiday and a major domestic travel weekend across Italy. Trains fill, hotels spike for two or three nights, and museums are busier than the surrounding days. Arrive on the 9th rather than into the 8th if you can.

Weather and Daylight

December is colder than November but drier, and the difference is more noticeable than the numbers suggest. Nights drop close to freezing and the mornings are genuinely cold in a way the daytime average of eleven degrees does not convey.

Then the sun gets over the buildings and a clear December afternoon is pleasant in a jumper. The swing between morning and afternoon is the thing to dress for.

Snow is rare in the city itself, though it does occasionally lie, and the surrounding hills get it. If you actively want snow, the Apennines are an hour and a half away and covered under day trips below.

What to Pack

• A real coat. This is the first month of the Florentine year where a fleece is not enough at eight in the morning or after five in the evening.
• Layers under it. Museums are heated, churches are not, and you will be taking things off and putting them back on all day.
• Gloves and a hat. Cheap, small, and the difference between enjoying an early morning walk and cutting it short. Standing still at a viewpoint at four in the afternoon in December is colder than walking in it.
• Waterproof shoes with grip. Ten wet days, worn stone paving, and the odd frost. Same advice as every other winter month, and it still gets ignored.
• A scarf. Doubles as church shoulder cover, which matters more in a month when you will be in a lot of churches.
• Something smarter than you would pack in July if you are going to a concert or eating out properly. Florentines dress up in December.

What you can leave: an umbrella, thermals, snow gear. Florence in December is a cold damp city, not an alpine one.

Opening Hours: The Bit That Catches People

The single most common December mistake is assuming that a month with public holidays in it works like an ordinary month. It does not, and the closures are not evenly distributed.

Three things follow. First, the Uffizi and Accademia lose two days of the month entirely, and if your three-night trip contains one of them you have lost a third of your museum time. Check the dates against your itinerary before you book flights, not after.

Second, ordinary Monday closures still apply. The Uffizi, Accademia and Bargello all close on Mondays year-round, which in a short December trip is a second lost day you need to plan around.

Third, the cathedral is free to enter and closes to sightseeing on Sundays and major feast days. The dome climb, bell tower and Baptistery run on the Duomo pass system with their own reduced holiday timetable and fewer slots than usual. If the dome matters to you, book it the moment you have dates — our Duomo complex guide has the mechanics.

For the festive-specific detail — what opens on Christmas Day, which city museums are the exception — see our Christmas in Florence guide, which handles that side of the month in full.

Prices and Booking Windows

The after-four Uffizi ticket deserves a warning specific to this month. It costs €16 against €25 on the day and gets you in from 16:00, but the ticket office closes at 17:30 and the gallery at 18:30, so you are buying two and a half hours at most in a building that deserves four. In June that is a bargain. In December it is a false economy.

The Firenze Card has the same December problem in a different shape: €85 for 72 consecutive hours from first entry, and many of the major museums close on 25 December or 1 January, so a window that takes in either day buys you less. Check each venue’s holiday hours before you start the clock. The Duomo complex is not included either. Buy singles.

Things to Do That Are Not Christmas

Assume for a moment that you are not here for the markets. December still has a lot going for it, and most of it is indoors and warm.

• The museums you would normally skip. With no queues anywhere, December is the month to do the Bargello, the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Palazzo Davanzati and San Marco — all of them excellent, all of them empty, all of them warm.
• The opera and concert season. The Teatro del Maggio and the Teatro della Pergola are in full programme, and December brings the usual run of Christmas concerts in churches, many of them free or cheap. Santo Spirito and the Duomo both host them.
• Palazzo Strozzi. The winter exhibition is usually the best single indoor thing in the city that is not a permanent collection, and it runs through the month.
• Fiorentina at the Stadio Artemio Franchi. Serie A runs through December, the ground is a genuine piece of 1930s engineering by Pier Luigi Nervi, and a mid-table home game is affordable, loud and completely untouristed.

• The workshops. The Oltrarno artisans — leather, gilding, bookbinding, marbled paper — are working through December and much more willing to talk to you when there is nobody else in the shop.
• Long lunches. Genuinely. A three-hour lunch in a warm trattoria while it rains outside is a legitimate use of a December afternoon and you will not get a table like it in May.

Our indoor Florence guide is the fuller list, and it is as useful for cold as for wet.

Day Trips in December

Winter day trips need more thought than summer ones, mostly because of daylight. You have about nine hours, and a two-hour journey each way eats most of it.

• Siena, Pisa, Lucca, Bologna all work by train and all are pleasantly empty in December. Lucca in particular is a better winter town than a summer one — the walls, the churches, and nobody on them.
• Fiesole is the end of the line for bus 7 from Piazza della Libertà and gives you the hills without the commitment. Cold and clear up there in December, with the best view of the city you will get.
• Chianti is doable but bleak — the vines are bare sticks and many estates close or run reduced winter visits. Check before you go.
• Snow. The Tuscan Apennines north of Florence get proper winter. Abetone, about ninety minutes away, is the region’s main ski area, and there is enough of a season from late December to make a day of it. It is not the Alps and nobody pretends otherwise, but it is real snow an hour and a half from a Renaissance city.

Whatever you choose, check the return timetable. Regional services thin out on Sundays and public holidays, and December has several.

Eating in a Cold Month

Tuscan food is winter food that happens to be eaten all year, and December is when it makes complete sense.

• Ribollita — the thick, reboiled bread-and-bean soup with cavolo nero. The definitive Florentine winter dish and about €8 in an ordinary trattoria.
• Pappa al pomodoro, its warmer-weather cousin, still on menus and still good.
• Bistecca alla fiorentina — priced by the kilo, cooked rare whether you like it or not, and shared. December is as good a month for it as any.
• Trippa and lampredotto from the street carts, which keep working through the winter and are considerably more appealing at eight degrees than at thirty-five.
• Olio nuovo is still around into early December before the season tails off.
• Cavolo nero, in everything, because December is when it is best — Tuscan kale is improved by frost.

The pastry side of the month, and what the holiday table looks like, is in our Christmas guide.

Getting About

Nothing about Florentine transport changes much in December, but a few things bite harder in a short cold day.

• A single bus or tram ticket is €2.00, valid 90 minutes, from ticket machines and authorised retailers, or by app or SMS. It is €3.00 from the driver — buy a few in advance so you are covered over Christmas and New Year.
• Buses 12 and 13 reach Piazzale Michelangelo; a taxi from the centre is about €10 and ten to fifteen minutes. In December the walk up is pleasant and the walk down in the dark is not, so consider going up on foot and coming back on the bus.
• The ZTL is active Monday to Friday 07:30–20:00 and Saturday 07:30–16:00, suspended on Sundays and public holidays. The summer night ZTL does not apply in December. Fines are €83–332 plus notification costs, and a rental company may add its own admin fee.
• Left luggage at Santa Maria Novella: KiPoint by Platform 16, daily 07:00–21:00, first five hours €6, 24 hours €19 walk-in or €10 pre-booked. Useful on an arrival or departure day when the hotel cannot take you.

Who December Suits

Come 1–20 December if: you want the best value week of the year in a decorated city, you do not mind dark afternoons, and your trip is built around art, food and walking. This is our recommendation, and it is not close.

Come 21–31 December if: you specifically want the holiday atmosphere, you have booked everything by September, and you have accounted for the two days when the major museums are shut. It can be wonderful; it is not the easy option.

Come in a different month if: this is your one and only trip to Florence, you have three days, and you want to be outdoors. Nine hours of daylight and ten wet days is a poor allocation of a once-in-a-decade visit.

The month after, which is quieter still and has the sales, is covered in Florence in January.

And the month before, wetter but warmer, is in Florence in November.

Frequently Asked Questions

Keep Reading

• Christmas in Florence — the markets, the lights and what opens on the 25th.
• Florence in winter — December to February as a season.
• Florence in November — wetter, warmer, cheaper still.
• Florence weather by month — the full averages.
• The Duomo complex — passes, the dome and holiday timetables.
• Indoor Florence — as useful for cold as for wet.