When to Visit Rome

The climate in brief

Rome has a Mediterranean climate, with mild winters and hot, dry summers. At the Rome Urbe weather station, north of the center, the average afternoon high over the years 1991 to 2020 runs from about 55 °F in January to about 91 °F in July and August, and the average night low from about 38 °F in winter to about 67 °F in high summer.

Rain falls mostly between September and April. November is the wettest month, with rain on nine or ten days, while July and August see it on only two or so. Rome lies at about the same latitude as New York and Chicago, so winter days are longer than in northern Europe: about ten hours of daylight in December, January and February. It is also sunny, with some two and a half thousand hours of sunshine a year, and among the continent's capitals only Madrid, Lisbon and Athens have a higher ultraviolet index; in July it reaches nine on a scale where December sits at one, so bring a hat and sunscreen for the open sites.

Summer

From June to August Rome is hot, dry and bright. July is the sunniest month of the year, with around eleven hours of sunshine a day, and afternoons in the low nineties are normal. The city's stones hold the heat, and the great open sites, the Roman Forum, the Palatine and the Baths of Caracalla, have little shade.

Walk early and late, and use the middle of the day for churches, museums and long lunches. Carry a bottle: Rome has some two and a half thousand nasoni, the little cast-iron street fountains named for their nose-like spouts, which run with the same safe drinking water as the city's homes. Block the bottom of the spout with a finger and the water rises from a hole on top. In August the city changes: around Ferragosto, the holiday of 15 August, the feast of the Assumption with roots in the festival of the emperor Augustus, many Romans leave for the sea or the mountains, and some businesses close for a week or two.

Spring and fall

April, May, late September and October are the easiest months for a visit on foot. Days are warm rather than hot, around 68 °F in April and 77 °F in May, 82 °F in September and 73 °F in October, and there is still plenty of daylight. They are also the busiest months, so the early-morning rule matters most then.

Spring has the city's own birthday. Every year on 21 April Rome celebrates its legendary founding, the Natale di Roma, with historical reenactments and a costumed parade, and around the same time part of the Spanish Steps is covered with pots of azaleas, which stay into early May. Fall brings more rain, especially from October; in the second week of May, the Italian Open tennis tournament is played on the clay courts of the Foro Italico.

Winter

Winter in Rome is mild by northern standards: days around 55 to 57 °F, nights a few degrees above freezing, and rain on seven to nine days a month. It is the quietest season for visitors, and the best for the great museums and churches, which are at their emptiest; the outdoor sites are pleasant on a clear, cold day.

Christmas is one of the great moments in the Roman year. A nineteenth-century crib is set up on the first landing of the Spanish Steps, and from Christmas to the Epiphany, on 6 January, Piazza Navona holds a market of toys and sweets tied to the Befana, the old woman of Italian folklore said to live among its rooftops. The Italian Christmas season runs from 8 December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, to the Epiphany. Santa Maria Maggiore, long known as Saint Mary of the Crib, keeps the relic of the manger of the Nativity.

Rome's birthday and other dates

The Natale di Roma, on 21 April, is older than any of the city's churches. The emperor Claudius was the first to celebrate the anniversary of Rome, in 47, eight hundred years after the date of its legendary founding, and Philip the Arab marked its first thousand years in 248. The feast was revived in the Risorgimento, and today the Gruppo Storico Romano marks it each year with a parade in period costume and scenes of ancient life.

Other dates fill the streets in their own way. The Rome Marathon has traditionally been run in March, though it has moved in some years; the Festa della Repubblica on 2 June closes the Via dei Fori Imperiali for its parade; and in August, Ferragosto leaves the center unusually quiet.

The Church's calendar

Rome's calendar is also the Catholic Church's. On 29 June the city keeps the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, its patron saints, martyred in Rome. On 5 August, at Santa Maria Maggiore, white rose petals fall from the dome to recall the legend of the summer snow. Holy Years, or Jubilees, a tradition that began in 1300 and now falls every twenty-five years, bring pilgrims in great numbers, when the Holy Doors of the four major papal basilicas, St. Peter's among them, are opened; the last ordinary Jubilee was in 2025.

If you plan to visit the Vatican Museums on a particular day, check their calendar of openings and closures first: religious feasts affect them as much as the weather does.

Crowds and calendars

Crowds follow the calendar more than the weather. The quietest months for visitors are the winter ones. Italian public holidays change shop and museum hours: among them are 25 April, Liberation Day, and 2 June, Republic Day, when a military parade runs along Via dei Fori Imperiali, and Rome adds its own holiday on 29 June for its patron saints. Check the official site of any museum before planning around it.

Whatever the season, the hours before the tour groups arrive are the best. The squares and fountains of the old center, and the Trevi Fountain above all, are at their calmest early in the morning.