Suggestions for Easter and Easter Monday in or around Florence?

Momto4

New member
My husband and I are meeting up with friends on Easter Sunday for a week in Florence. We have rented an apartment.

There will be six of us, and I think the general feeling is that we don't want a fast-paced vacation but do want to see some of the top sites. We will get the Florence Card and plan to spend 3 days seeing Florence, spend one day in Chianti vineyards (either on our own or on a guided wine tour), and possibly spend a day each in Sienna and Lucca. If we don't do a wine tour, we're planning to rent a van for a day to do Chianti, but we were planning to use public transportation for the rest of the trip.

Do you have any suggestions on which of those activities would be best for Easter Monday? Given that some of us will be recovering from jetlag (the others will have been in Rome for a day or two first) and we'd like a relaxing day?

I've heard that the train schedules will be running on a different schedule, which might make Sienna and Lucca difficult. I'm having trouble finding details of what the schedules will be for Easter Monday. (It would help if I spoke Italian, but, sadly, I don't.)

Any other tips on making those first two days go smoothly? We would prefer to avoid the worst of the crowds.
 
Easter in Florence and maybe Easter Monday in Siena

Ciao Momto4,

There is no way to avoid crowds in Florence that Easter weekend - with the Scoppio del Carro and Easter Monday being a holiday, there are usually a lot of Italians that also take the 3 day weekend and visit the city. Because Monday is also a holiday, there will be a lot of places closed down.... but also many that remain open particularly for visitors. Expect many museums to be open, particularly in Florence and Siena.... so while Easter will be busy in Florence, I highly recommend you enjoy the morning events in the center (parade in historical costume followed by the Explosion of the Cart in Piazza del Duomo) and on Monday you might want to go to Siena. You can check train schedules on Trenitalia - HomePage with the specific date, you should get the modified schedules for holidays. I wouldn't recommend wineries or doing the small towns on Monday, unless you just want to drive around and see places from the outside. Expect many things to be closed because of the holiday.
 
Lourdes, thank you for your advice. Unfortunately, we are arriving in Florence too late on Sunday to see the explosion of the cart. :-(

I'm assuming the Mercato Centrale will be closed on Easter Monday. Is that correct?

(My friends don't want to plan things too far in advance, so I'm trying to gather information to make things go as smoothly as possible.)
 
Sounds like a great idea to gather ideas of possible things to do and then decide at the very end.

Yes, the mercato centrale of San Lorenzo will likely be closed on Easter Monday as it is a holiday. It is also closed on Sundays. Though I'm thinking the outdoors stalls around the mercato might be out on Monday, since there will be lots of people about and they'll take advantage of that. So you could still use the day to walk around and sightsee Florence from the outside, going in where you see that places are open.
 
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