Only a few weeks of sunshine left!
The weather in Rome is never really bad. Not bad in the sense that the rest of the world understands it anyway, with heavy snow or gale force winds or driving rain. Even in December Rome gets average highs of 10° Celsius and it doesn’t rain half as much here as it does elsewhere in Europe. There’s no telling the Romans that though so year in year out, the capital city winds down for the winter. From October onwards, things can get pretty quiet around here. On the upside this means that there are great deals to be had with off-peak accommodation. On the downside, it probably means compromising on a lot of the things you wanted to do. If your to-do list included one of our grab-them-while-it's-hot tours, you may have to include them on your list of compromises.
At Christmas it's oh so quiet
Come October we’ll be putting a lot of our tours to bed for the winter while we focus on preparing for next year – brainstorming new tours, new languages and new perspectives. Our core tours run 12 months a year so don’t worry, we’d be happy to guide you through The Borghese Gallery, The Vatican, The Colosseum and The Roman Forum in the dead of winter, as will we still be running our Milan and Florence tours, but if you had your eye on one of our more boutique excursions you might want to book in in the next few weeks.
On October 30th we’ll be running our last tour of Pompeii & Vesuvius. Vesuvius is particularly sensitive to the weather so when it rains or when there are strong winds, the grounds tend to be closed to visitors and we don’t want to drag you all the way out there for nothing. The next day, October 31st we’ll be bidding adieu to our Frascati region tour, again this is down to the weather. Who wants to wander the vineyards when the branches are bare? Meanwhile November 20th is the last date for our Ostia Antica tour.
You’ll probably also notice a smaller selection of core tours. While we will still be running group tours to The Colosseum which take in Palatine Hill and The Roman Forum, our combined Colosseum and Capitoline Museums tour will be taking a hiatus until early next spring. And while it’s business as usual for all the rest of our Vatican tours, the Vatican by night tour will finish on October 28th until early next summer. Many other tour operators will be closing down completely for the (slightly) colder months.
Get here before the rain does!
The moral of the story is that when it comes to Rome tours, you have to employ a grab-them-while-its-hot attitude. Get out and about while the summer is still with us – head to Puglia for the olive festival, see Frascati while the leaves are still green and climb Vesuvius while the gates are still open. Then when the skies cloud over, do as the Romans do and grab a warm blanket and a glass of red wine. Get some rest before it’s time to do it all again next year!