Tuscany Travel Forum

I am considering a Thanksgiving in Tuscany tour. Have been to various Italian destinations about 7 times but always in the fall--September-October. How is the touristic experience different at the end of November? Plusses and minuses, please.

We spent American Thanksgiving in northern Italy (Lombardy, Liguria, Emilia-Romagna) a few years ago, and it was quite nice. Some thoughts...

1. The days are pretty short. This means that you need to get going when it's light. On the other hand, if you like the dark evenings, it's fine.

2. The weather is cool, but it generally isn't so cool as to snow (although rain is high in this season).

3. We spent Thanksgiving Day in Parma, and there weren't many tourists. We went to Portovenere the day after, and we almost the only foreigners in town. This week is the week or two between the fall season and the start of Christmas season, so tourism is at its lowest - great for you.

Although I believe that October is the best month of the year to visit Northern Italy, November ain't bad, especially if you want to avoid the crowds...

Bill

Hi. We spent October and November in Tuscany a few years ago. October was great; we loved it. By November things were closing down and it rained more and more. Post above is correct; days are quite short and that limits touring. The rain was never bad enough to keep us at our little house, but right after we left, there was major flooding in Florence and nearby. This won't happen every year, of course, but you need to have a tv and keep an eye on the weather.

The fields are mostly plowed and barren and there are no leaves on the grapes. On the other hand, the famous Italian cypress are green all year and still look lovely even in November. We had a few very chilly days, but planned for it and just wore lots of layers. It worked.

The only thing that bothered us was that in the more touristy small towns, many shops and even restaurants were closed. Sometimes restaurants were open evenings but not for lunch but more often they were closed for a month or more. A few times we had to drive to three or four different towns to find lunch. This was more a problem near the shore than inland. If you plan to visit a city, you won't have any problem at all because there are enough people around to keep the shops busy. We had a rental house so could cook when we wanted to.

On the bright side, we were treated like royalty in most restaurants since they didn't have many tourists. We met chefs, were introduced to staff families, got tastes of new dishes gratis. It was lots of fun and people have much more time to chat with you. We also love autumn foods like pumpkin soups and game meats. There are definite advantages. As long as you realize it's a different experience, you will probably have a great time.

Haven't been in November, but have been in both late October and mid-February.

Personally, I think the lack of visitors far outweighs the shorter daylight hours and the possibility of some places being closed. Eating out in Sorrento in February was more limited than in the summer, but not greatly so and certainly ddn't cause me any problems. I have had no such problems in larger places like Rome and Florence. Nor did I find anywhere I wanted to visit to be closed, although many do have different winter opening hours.

It is lovely for me, as a Brit, to see sunshine in the winter months and, generally, I did. It may well be chilly, and even cold, and may rain, but appropriate packing will deal with that.

I'd happily go at the end of November, if only for the sheer pleasure of experiencing Italy without quite so many other visitors.