My wife and I are planning on taking the RS Best of Italy 17-day tour in the spring of 2015. This is our first trip to Italy and will be our 5th tour with RS. We are leaning towards going in May to avoid the heat. We're thinking that April might be to cool especially since the tour starts in the north on Lake Como and then on to the Dolomites before turning south. We've read that June can get hot and crowded. We'd like to know what month in the spring you would recommend and why.
Thanks for your thoughts,
Doug and Lisa
Between mid May and mid June is my favorite.
But different people have different opinions. Some like it cool, some like it hot.
Below are the weather averages for Florence as an example. You can select other locations on the same website:
http://www.holiday-weather.com/florence/averages/
Crowds are inevitable no matter when you go, unless you go between October and March when they taper down. But it's shoulder season at the Dolomites and lake Como and the Cinque Terre not as super crowded as in July/August (unless you go there on weekends or holidays).
I like traveling towards late May and early June. Usually lovely weather.
dawg,
I'd also suggest mid-May to mid-June, as the weather should be a bit warmer then, but of course never any guarantees. It's always a good idea to be prepared for rain at any time of the year, as I've encountered some severe rain storms in Italy.
That's a great tour, and I'm sure you'll really enjoy it.
I just looked at historical temps (13 years) for Rome for the first 10 days of June. Most years the highs were in the 70's to low 80's. There were a couple of years when the temps were up in the low 90's.