Best Time to Visit Bologna: Weather, Food Seasons & Crowds

Check Bologna for your dates

The checker reads the forecast for central Bologna when your date is within about two weeks, and the long-term average for the month when it is further away. It also flags Sundays, national holidays, the Ferragosto week and trade fairs, which change what is open and what hotels cost.

Other Bologna food experiences

If you are planning a cooking class for a rainy afternoon, a truffle hunt in the hills in the fall or a day in the Food Valley towns of Modena and Parma, the widget below shows other food experiences in and around Bologna.

Bologna through the year

Spring, March to May. March is still cool, with average highs of about 15 °C, and April warms to about 19 °C but is one of the wetter spring months. May is the warmest spring month, at about 24 °C in the afternoon, with nearly fifteen hours of daylight in the middle of the month. The Vignola cherry harvest, in the hills west of Bologna, starts in the second half of May. Each May the Madonna di San Luca, the icon kept in the hilltop sanctuary, is carried down into the city for the week of Ascension (May 9 to 17 in 2026), so the date moves with Easter.

Summer, June to August. June averages about 29 °C and 13 days above 30 °C, and July and August about 31 °C and 21 to 22 days above 30 °C each. Bologna sits in the Po Valley, so the heat is humid and the nights stay warm: the city center averages more than 20 warm nights, with lows above 20 °C, in both July and August. Summer is also the season of outdoor evenings. The Bologna Estate program ran from May 15 to September 27 in 2026, mostly free, and the Cineteca’s open-air film screenings ran in Piazza Maggiore from June 15 to August 14. Il Cinema Ritrovato, the film festival, returns from June 19 to 27, 2027.

Fall, September to November. September is warm, at about 26 °C, with far fewer very hot days than August, and restaurants are back from the summer break. October cools to about 19 °C and brings the white-truffle season, which opens on October 1, the chestnut festival at Castel del Rio and the truffle fairs in the hills. It is also wetter, with about 86 mm of rain in an average October, and November is the wettest month of the year at about 92 mm. From 2026, October 4 is both Bologna’s patron saint’s day and a national holiday.

Winter, December to February. Average highs fall to about 8 °C in December and January and 10 °C in February, and fog is common on winter mornings. Winter is the season for tortellini in brodo, the small filled pasta served in beef and hen broth, which is the traditional Christmas dish in Bologna. The Fiera di Santa Lucia Christmas market runs under the portico of Strada Maggiore from November 6 to December 27 in 2026, and on New Year’s Eve the Vecchione, a giant effigy, is burned in Piazza Maggiore.

Bologna weather by month

The figures below are long-term averages for the city center from ARPAE, the Emilia-Romagna environment agency. Rain is the average total for the whole month, not a daily figure, and it says nothing about how many days are wet. Daylight is sunrise to sunset in the middle of the month.

July and August are the driest months and October and November the wettest, so pack an umbrella for a fall trip. The heat also builds fast after May: an average May has two days above 30 °C, and an average July has 22. On those days the porticoes, 42 km of them in the historic center, give shade between stops, but a three-hour food tour in the middle of the afternoon is hard work.

How busy Bologna gets, month by month

Overnight stays in Bologna are lowest in January and highest in spring and fall, a figure that counts people staying in the city’s hotels, guest houses and rentals, not day visitors or the crowds in the Quadrilatero at lunchtime. The monthly figures below are the Emilia-Romagna Region’s, rounded to the nearest thousand.

January has had the fewest stays in all three years, and February and December come next. The busiest months for stays are in spring and fall: October led in 2023 and 2024, and May in 2025. August is quieter than any month from March to July and than September and October, in all three years. Compare months within one year rather than across years: the 2025 figures are much higher than 2024’s, and the region’s files suggest they cover more types of accommodation.

Trade fairs can push hotel prices up in any season. BolognaFiere hosts large international trade fairs such as Cosmoprof and Cersaie, and the president of Bologna’s hotel association has said that, while the city’s hotels usually have rooms to spare, some days of Cersaie or Cosmoprof are “another story”. The city’s tourism councilor has said the same about prices: they rise during big events such as Cosmoprof and the large fairs. Cosmoprof runs from March 18 to 21, 2027, and Arte Fiera from February 5 to 7, 2027. Cersaie ran from September 21 to 25 in 2026. If your dates are flexible, check the fair calendar before booking a hotel.

Food seasons in Bologna

Bologna’s everyday dishes, mortadella, Parmigiano Reggiano, tagliatelle al ragù and fresh pasta, are on menus in every month. What changes is the seasonal food around them:

• White truffles, October to January. The Emilia-Romagna harvest runs from October 1 to January 20 in every zone under the region’s current calendar. Earlier calendars opened the plains on September 1 and the hills on September 20, which is why some guides still say September; truffle hunting is now closed from August 16 to September 30. The fairs are in the hills outside the city, at Savigno (Tartòfla) and Sasso Marconi (Tartufesta), on weekends from late October to mid-November in 2026.
• Chestnuts, October. The Marrone di Castel del Rio, a protected chestnut from the hills southeast of Bologna, has its festival on Sundays in October: October 11, 18 and 25 in 2026.
• Tortellini in brodo, winter. The filling was fixed by the city’s tortellini brotherhood and the Italian Academy of Cuisine in 1974, and the broth must be beef and hen. It is eaten all year, but it is the traditional dish for Christmas.
• Cherries, late May and June. Vignola cherries, a protected product of the hills west of Bologna, are picked from the second half of May into June.

August in Bologna: heat and closures

August has the same heat as July, with average highs of about 31 °C, and it adds the Italian summer break. Bologna’s traders’ association counts how many of its members stay open in the week of Ferragosto, August 15: about 30 percent in 2025, and in 2024 only about one restaurant in three in the city stayed open that week, while 90 percent of hotels did. Bologna stays visitable through August, and the association publishes a list of the bars and restaurants that stay open, but some of the classic trattorias and food shops are likely to be shut that week. The Mercato delle Erbe does not close as a whole: its stalls take their summer breaks on staggered dates between late July and early September, and the market lists them on its website.

If August is your only option, plan around the mornings and evenings, book a food tour or restaurant for a named date, and check that it is running that week. One food-tour operator, for example, publishes that its daytime tour does not run in some weeks of August.

Sundays, holidays and the best time of day for a food tour

The market side of Bologna’s food scene runs Monday to Saturday. The Mercato delle Erbe food stalls open from 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Monday to Saturday, and are closed on Sundays, although the market’s restaurants and food counters still open for lunch and dinner. Several food-tour operators run their group tours Monday to Saturday only: Taste Bologna’s classic tour and Delicious Bologna’s daytime tour both start at 10 a.m. on weekdays, and neither runs a group tour on Sundays. Some operators also skip national holidays, which in Italy include January 1 and 6, Easter Monday, April 25, May 1, June 2, August 15, November 1, December 8, December 25 and 26, and, from 2026, October 4.

Morning or evening? A morning tour takes in the markets while the stalls are busy and the shops are stocked, and it suits a first visit. An evening tour moves from aperitivo to a sit-down dinner and suits a hot summer day, when the afternoon is the hottest part of the day. In summer the Ministry of Health publishes a heat alert for Bologna from Monday to Friday (from May 25 to September 20 in 2026); on a heat-alert day, choose the earliest departure, when the day is at its coolest.

What is closed right now

The Asinelli tower, the taller of the Two Towers, has been closed to visitors since October 2023 while the neighboring Garisenda tower is made safe. No reopening date has been announced, and the city’s target for finishing the Garisenda works is 2028. The restoration of the hillside section of the San Luca portico, the covered walk up to the sanctuary, finished in January 2026.

Which food experience fits your dates

For more on what a walking food tour covers, see what to expect on a Bologna food tour, and for the timing of the tour itself, our guide to the best time for a Bologna food tour.

Questions people ask

Sources and methodology