March in Florence is a gamble. Some years it arrives cold and grey well into April. Other years, without warning, a week of warm light shows up in early March and the whole city changes mood overnight. The wisteria comes out on the walls along Via Maggio and the Oltrarno fills up with people who have been waiting for an excuse to sit outside.
Spring here has a quality that summer, for all its beauty, doesn’t quite replicate. The crowds haven’t arrived yet. The Uffizi is bookable without planning months ahead. The hills outside the city are intensely green from the winter rains, and the vines are just coming into leaf.
Easter in the Piazza
Easter Sunday brings the Scoppio del Carro to Piazza del Duomo, one of the oldest rituals still practiced in the city. A cart loaded with fireworks is pulled by white Chianina oxen from the Porta al Prato to the cathedral, where a mechanical dove ignites the display at the moment of the Gloria. The tradition dates back centuries and the square fills early. It’s over in minutes but those minutes are genuinely unlike anything else.
From late April the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino takes over the Teatro del Maggio with opera, concerts and ballet through June. One of the oldest music festivals in Europe, and the programming is serious. Book early for anything you actually want to see.
Out of the City
Outside the city, the hills northeast of Florence are at their most convincing in May. The temperature is mild enough to spend a full day outdoors, the light comes in at an angle that makes everything look considered, and the landscape has a freshness that the summer sun burns off by July. Fiesole, eight kilometers from the center, earns its reputation in spring. The view back over Florence from the Roman amphitheater is the background of every Renaissance painting you’ve seen, made real. The roads between Fiesole and the Sieve valley are quiet at this time of year, good for exploring by bike without the heat that makes the same climbs demanding in July.
Further out along the Sieve valley the estates are open and unhurried. The tastings feel like conversations rather than transactions. The valley in May is quiet in a way it won’t be again until October.
