I have the chance to travel to Italy for the first time in October 2025. However, a few people have mentioned to me that the entire country is going to be insanely crowded during 2025 due to the 2025 Jubilee year for Catholics and that I should avoid Italy altogether.
Thoughts? Is this likely going to be the case?
Welcome to the forum. If you do a forum search for Jubilee 2025, and filter for threads in the last 6 months, you'll find a boat load of previous threads on the topic.
I was in Rome in November 2020. It was busy but very interesting. Lots of special services, nuns, priests and monks from far and wide. An amazing array of vestments. I stayed in a convent in Trastevere that was busy but not sold out. Outside of Rome things seemed normal. But that was 25 years ago things are busier these days.
Brad
Probably Rome yes, will be very crowded and expensive.
A good chance to visit some less known areas of Italy, like Emilia Romagna. If you avoid the areas where the 99% of Americans are you will be fine and you understand why Italy is defined "il bel Paese" since centuries!
If you are worried about crowds and getting into key sites, book a group tour. October should be less crowded.
We are doing a tour of Tuscany and Umbria in late April, early May with Road Scholar.
Unless the jubilee is something specific for you, why even bother going to Rome at that time? There is more to Italy than Rome. And there is more of Europe than Italy. So why think about if or not it will be crowded?
I was in Rome this past October. It was insanely crowded.
But the good news, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, is that no one goes there anymore. It's too crowded.
Marrone! I really don't know what the furor is...I did make a slight adjustment in our April trip, and will be visiting Rome two weeks before Easter instead of during Holy Week. But we booked AirBnB's & hotels from Florence to Rome To Salerno to Sicily way back in July, there was plenty of availability & we paid reasonable prices.
Now...I hate crowds as much as the next guy, which is why on our previous three trips to Italy, it's been in October and twice in February/March. I do not like to wait in lines either, which is why we booked The Tour Guy for a Vatican/St. Peter's tour, and we may book an Uffizi tour in Florence. Also booked a driving tour of the Amalfi Coast from Salerno, so we won't have to navigate the SITA bus or the ferry. I'll book the train for our legs of the trip next month when April becomes available. And my cousin's son, who lives up north in Bra, says he will call and do all our restaurant reservations country-wide for us speaking in Italiano. Can't do much more than that...
I think you just have to accept that there will be throngs of people, and adjust accordingly.
My husband and I were just talking earlier today about not going to Rome in 2025, because of the Jubilee. But anywhere else in Italy? Certainly, no question. Well, that is, we won’t be going back to the Cinque Terre again … waaay too crowded (we went in October, three years ago), jubilee year or not.
I consider the Cinque Terre similar to the Amalfi Coast, as far as crowds are concerned, except the A.C. is deserted until about March 1, then almost immediately it's overrun. Too many people in a very concentrated area. In Florence or Rome, you can always beg off the beaten path to some quiet area.
We spent two months in Florence in 2003 and recently were there for two weeks. the center is so crowded that it is difficult to even cross the Ponte Vecchio. Place we had often visited in 2003 now have lines of 60 or 100 or more. Vivoli the well known gelato shop was a stop for us on the way to Italian classes in. 2003. Now the line is dozens long; there is no way I will ever wait in that kind of a line for ice cream. Time to start going to places off the beaten path. France and Italy are not them.
I would go. Nobody goes to Italy anymore. It’s too crowded.
I'd encourage potential visitors to Italy's top tourist destinations (and not just for next year) to think about what sorts of things they want to see and how they react to crowds. I'm good with spending a large percentage of my time at secondary sights or just walking along atmospheric streets. I can tolerate an occasional mob scene if I just have to see something like the Vatican Museums. I think those who mostly want to see the most popular places like the Vatican Museums, St. Peter's, the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Spanish Steps and the Fountain of Trevi need to think hard about how they've reacted in the past to situations that are wall-to-wall people.
So true acraven--this is a totally subjective thing. I wish people would also think when planning, "Do I really care about seeing this or am I just here for a photo or because I was told it was a 'must-see.'" I saw so many miserable people at Cinque Terre. I could tell they did not even particularly like nature. Same goes for art or archaeology--go to stretch your imagination, sure, but it's okay to be choosy!
Like another poster, I was in Italy this past October and it was very very crowded. It was also still very hot.
Well, I should say that Rome and Florence were very crowded. So was The Amalfi Coast but less so. Cagliari, Sardinia Sicily was pleasant.
I think it is going to depend on what cities you will be visiting.
