If you’re thinking about planning a trip to Florence, you might be wondering if visiting in the winter is worth it. After all, the reduced prices for hotels, flights, and attractions are certainly appealing!

While it’s definitely up to personal preference, we would absolutely recommend visiting Florence in February mainly due to the lack of crowds.

If you don’t mind a bit of rainy and windy weather, February can be a wonderful time to experience a quieter Florence! Here are a few of our top things to do if you decide to visit during the winter months.

Visit Art Museums

If you’re an art lover, February is the perfect time to visit Florence.

Florence is full of Renaissance art and home to the famous Uffizi Gallery, which is the most visited museum in all of Italy! The museum attracts over four million visitors a year and houses masterpieces by Botticelli, Michelangelo, Rafael, da Vinci, and more.

There are discounted afternoon tickets available if you plan to visit later in the day, so we picked a later time slot and stayed until closing.

It ended up being perfect because there was hardly anyone else there. There were entire rooms that we got to walk through completely alone, which is completely unheard of if you visit during the summer!

At the Accademia we saw the world famous David by Michelangelo. He is breathtaking in person and absolutely massive!

He stands at 17 feet tall and weighs over 5.5 tons. Other than the fact that Gabe thinks his hands are too big, the David is by far the most perfect statue that we have ever seen!

Shop for Leather Goods

Florence is famous for its leather goods, and February is a wonderful time to shop without all of the crowds.

Every year for our anniversary we give each other the traditional gift of that year. We just celebrated our third anniversary, and conveniently the gift for this year is leather!

A local told us that to find the authentic stuff you need to head to the Santa Croce area (but skip the outdoor leather market!).

There are many shops to choose from, but we found a small local place where Gabe picked out a belt and I got a beautiful handbag and a luggage tag. The shop also did free embossing so we got to add our initials to our items!

Take a Cooking Class

One of our favorite experiences in Florence by far was this pasta making class at a local restaurant!

We learned how to make pappardelle, spinach ravioli, and tiramisu from scratch and drank lots of wine (unlimited with the booking) with so many fun people!

At the end of the class they sent us the recipes so that we could recreate everything at home, along with an official “Pasta Mastery” certificate which was such a cute touch.

Overall, visiting Florence in February was a great decision for us! We love experiencing the slower place of life in cities and the off season makes everything feel less hectic and more personal.

The weather might be a bit chilly, but it’s such a unique time to go and we would choose it again in a heartbeat!