Best time to visit Bologna

Italy · Europe

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Bologna

Tap a month for its page

Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Go in Jun or Jul — 29C max, 4 rainy days. Aug is the next best.

Plan this trip

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Where to stay

Things to do

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Things to do in Bologna

Imola Town and comune in Italy
Basilica di San Petronio It had to be the largest church in the world and in the shape of a huge Latin cross…
Fontana di Nettuno A fountain built in 1563 by Tommaso Laureti of Palermo…
Marzabotto Italian comune
Basilica di San Domenico Major church in Bologna, Italy
Palazzo d'Accursio Bologna's city hall, with a very rich collection of Renaissance paintings…
Museo Lamborghini Automobile museum

Tours and tickets in Bologna

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Bologna), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.

Month by month

No fare history for this route yet, so this ranking is climate and crowds only — the price column will fill in as the scanner collects.

Month	Max °C	Rain days	Humidity	Sun h/day	Verdict	Why
Jan	8°	6d	83%	5.8h	ok	8C max, 6 rainy days
Feb	11°	6d	79%	7.0h	ok	11C max, 6 rainy days
Mar	15°	7d	70%	8.9h	good	15C max, 7 rainy days
Apr	19°	8d	67%	10.4h	good	19C max, 8 rainy days
May	22°	11d	69%	10.8h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Jun	29°	4d	58%	13.2h	sweet spot	29C max, 4 rainy days
Jul	32°	3d	57%	13.4h	sweet spot busy	busier than usual
Aug	32°	4d	58%	12.2h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Sep	26°	6d	68%	10.4h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Oct	20°	6d	77%	8.0h	good	20C max, 6 rainy days
Nov	13°	8d	83%	5.9h	ok	13C max, 8 rainy days
Dec	9°	8d	86%	5.0h	ok	9C max, 8 rainy days

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at Piazza Maggiore, 6 km from the airport (BLQ): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.

A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.

How busy it gets

Busiest in May, July, August and September; quietest from November to February.

Then and now

Bologna's June days now average 29.5°C, 3.5°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 6 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	7.2°	8.8°	13.2°	17.1°	21.8°	26.0°	29.9°	28.9°	25.1°	19.5°	12.2°	8.7°
2017–26	7.8°	11.3°	14.8°	18.6°	22.5°	29.5°	31.6°	31.5°	25.7°	20.4°	13.1°	8.8°
Change	+0.7°	+2.5°	+1.6°	+1.6°	+0.6°	+3.5°	+1.7°	+2.6°	+0.6°	+0.9°	+0.9°	+0.1°

The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.

Getting there

How far Bologna is, and what it costs, depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Type C and F and L plugs at 230 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the Euro. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Everything for Italy: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — By law, shops, cafés and bars must take a card payment of any amount, and refusing one is fined. Carry a little cash for tips.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — Not customary; restaurants outside Rome often add a cover charge (coperto). Leaving the change in cafés and taxis is common.

Getting around Bologna

Tap a contactless Visa or Mastercard, or a phone, on the green reader as you board a TPER bus and at every change, with the same card: a ride costs €2.30 and lasts 75 minutes, and a day's charges stop at €9. Validate any other ticket at the start and at every change. From the airport, the Marconi Express monorail to Bologna Centrale costs €12.80: tap the same card on the gates in and out.

Apps — Rides: FreeNow, itTaxi, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: WhatsApp. In Rome these apps book licensed taxis; Uber also offers the dearer Uber Black.

TPER manages public transport in Bologna. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Bologna, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Help

Emergency — police 112 · ambulance 118 · fire 115.
TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.

Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (51)

Bologna in pictures

Bologna Italy Monument to the victims of fascistic terror 01 — i

CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Coats of arms of alumnus on the walls of the Archiginnasio of Bologna. Italy — i

Ввласенко, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bologna Basilica di San Petronio Crocifisso dell'Altare Maggiore HDR GT 04 2025 09 27 12 42 25 001 — i

Terragio67, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Carvings South Porta Galliera Bologna Sep23 A7C 07961 — i

Timothy A, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Graffiti Montagnola Park Bologna Italy Sep23 A7C 07978 — i

Timothy A, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What Bologna is like

Bologna (Emilian: Bulåggna) is a beautiful and historic city in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northeast Italy. It has the oldest university in the Western world, a lively student population, excellent food, a striking brick terracotta-roofed cityscape, and lots to see and do. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: The iconic leaning towers (Due Torri) provide a useful central landmark. They are marked in the centre of the free map available from the Tourist Information Centre in the main square, Piazza Maggiore. More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing: Bologna Fiere, Via della Fiera, 20. An Exhibition Centre near Bologna, that among other things has an International Automobile Exhibition every year. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: Bologna's airport is approximately 6 km NW from the centre of the city: Guglielmo Marconi International Airport (BLQ IATA), Via Triumvirato, 84. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Bologna, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.

Around Bologna

Also in Italy

Nearby

Kind of place

Bologna is in Italy, Europe. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

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