Winter in Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan

We spent all of December 2011 traveling from Venice to Umbria, Sorrento, and Rome for a month. It was a fabulous trip! Did we get cold? Sure, a little, but it was also around 60 Fahrenheit and sunny many days. We dressed in layers (merino wool and polartec fleece are great) and had good jackets, gloves, hats and scarves. Smartwool socks and Gortex shoes kept our feet happy. We still managed to travel with only one roll-aboard each and a day pack.

The advantages of off-season travel are lower prices and smaller crowds. We liked Venice in winter so much we went back in Dec 2012 and we LOVED our Florence visit just a few weeks ago.

Two keys: dress appropriately and have flexible plans for outdoor activities on nice days and museums on not-to-nice days.

Treat yourselves to fleece-lined leather gloves. I found great ones, and not expensive, at the Florence market.

REI is a good place to find: thermal underclothes, rain ponchos, chemical handwarmers, all of which are good for that time of year.

Rome like San Jose
Florence like Sacramento
Milan and Venice like Oregon (not as wet as Portland but same temperatures)

I have experience in all of those cities except Milan. They're easy to navigate in the winter, maybe even better because there are fewer crowds and tourists at that time. It does get cold. How cold? That will really vary -- I would suggest using a site like Accuweather and looking up the average temperature for those cities on the dates you will be there, in addition to what it was like the last few years. That will give you a better idea than any generalizations :) Rome stays pretty warm. Venice can flood in spots, but they put table-like platforms out to walk on top of and avoid the flooding. In early November I had a worse time with mosquitoes in our hotel room (which meant we closed the window, but then it was very stuffy) than flooding. Still had a great time though, don't let small things like that ruin your trip. In my experience (lived there Aug-Dec) it wasn't consistently cold in Tuscany, but it did drop down enough sometimes to make it quite chilly. Other days were comfortable with just a sweater on, or less. I think it's a great time to go, just prepare with proper clothing (layer! that way you can add or remove easily to adjust for the weather).

Was just in Rome/Florence/Venice/Milan over the Christmas and New Year's holidays and we are from So Cal. We had no trouble navigating these cities - the weather varied - had some relatively warm, sunny days (low - high 50's) and some cold/rainy days (high 30's/ low 40's) . We did experience some flooding in Venice, but it wasn't an issue - the city is very quick to put up elevated walkways and unless the "aqua alta" is very high, it's not a problem - and rubber "wellies" are available almost everywhere once those walkways go up! The key is to pack a variety of layers - for my husband, that meant jeans/ khaki's for evening, underarmor t shirts, polo shirts, sweater/polartech and raincoat. For me, I packed jeans, uniglo heat tech long sleeved t's, long sleeved t's, a few wool sweaters (1 cardigan, 1 turtleneck and one v neck) and a lands end packable primaloft jacket ( pillow on plane) and raincoat - and long underwear bottoms! Gloves, scarves and an umbrella for us both and with that, we were fine with all weather conditions - and we don't check luggage. Even with our "so cal" blood, the weather really wasn't an issue.

Wow, thanks for all the responses. From doing my own due diligence and hearing what you fellow travelers had to say, I think we are going to book the trip. Happy Travels !!!!!

Just got back from florence venice and milan, it was around 50's in the morning and just a bit chillier in the evenings. Venice does flood early in the morning but only around st marks, no worries though they have planks that you can walk on. being from NYC the 50's felt like spring with this winter we've been having. But for someone from so cal, id just wear layers as if it was winter and you had to traveling around without a car. haha

but who knows, with this crazy weather we've been having next winter it might be 70's and tropical =)