Italy runs on its own rhythm, with national holidays, local festivals and regular closing days that can affect what's open during your trip. With a little advance planning, you can avoid surprises and make the most of your time!
There are a number of reasons why something like a museum or a shop might be closed on a given day in Italy. Sometimes, it might be an obvious holiday like Christmas. Other times, it might seem to you to be a random Tuesday in June. When you start planning your trip to Italy, it's a good idea to consult a calendar to find out what holidays and closing days will fall during your visit.
There are also a few things that happen during the year that aren't really holidays in the traditional sense but that can impact your travels.
Most museums and attractions in Italy are closed one day each week. The day may vary by location, but in many cases it's Monday or Tuesday. In Florence, the Uffizi and Accademia are closed on Mondays, for instance, while the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice is closed on Tuesdays and the Vatican Museums are closed on Sundays.
Check the open days of all the museums and attractions you want to visit in each city so you can plan your itinerary accordingly.
In predominantly Catholic Italy, it's probably not surprising that many things are closed on Sundays - including banks as well as some shops and restaurants. In more touristy areas, however, there's a greater likelihood that lots of shops and restaurants will be open on Sundays.
Given that most museums and attractions are closed on Mondays or Tuesdays, Sunday is a great day to plan a visit. The exception here is if it happens to be one of the "free" Sundays, usually occurring once per month, when entrance fees are waived and crowds increase exponentially as a result. This is often the first Sunday of the month.
There are 12 national public holidays in Italy, and most of these mean closures or schedule changes for museums, shops, banks, restaurants, schools and public transportation.
In addition to the national public holidays, there are also regional and local holidays that can also mean closures and schedule changes (and, potentially, fun local festivities). Each city and town celebrates their patron saint, for instance, on that saint's feast day. A few of these are:
When one of these holidays falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, the Monday or Friday (respectively) becomes a sort of holiday, too, as people take advantage of the opportunity for a 4-day weekend. This is known as "fare il ponte," or making a bridge between days off.
No matter when you plan to be in Italy, it's a good idea to check an events calendar for both national and local holidays that may impact open hours in any of the cities and towns you'll visit.
Public school holidays are determined primarily by region in Italy, so you'll need to check with the relevant regional administrative websites to get exact dates. The Italian Ministry of Education does publish a PDF list of national holidays (in Italian) here - click on "Ordinanza relative al calendario delle festività" for the relevant year. They also publish a spreadsheet summary of regional school calendars: "Riepilogo calendari scolastici regionali."
Here are some date ranges to get you started:
Some regions have school breaks of a few days for Carnevale, as well, which usually falls in February or March.
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