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Travel and Tourism in Italy
Travel alerts, currency, climate, transit, health, and safety information for visitors to Italy.
Practical Information
Travel alert status, currency, climate, and transit details.
- Travel Alert Status
- Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution
- Time Difference
- UTC+1 (6 hours ahead of Washington, DC, during Standard Time)
- Currency
- 1.07
- Climate
- Italy's climate is generally pleasant. Although summer temperatures can rise into the mid-90s with high humidity, evenings are considerably cooler, allowing people to take to the streets and squares. In the winter, nighttime temperatures often drop to freezing, but snowfall outside the mountains is rare. In all seasons, the south tends to be warmer and drier than the north.
- Language(s) Spoken
- Italian (official), German (parts of Trentino-Alto Adige region are predominantly German-speaking), French (small French-speaking minority in Valle d'Aosta region), Slovene (Slovene-speaking minority in the Trieste-Gorizia area), Croatian (in Molise)
- Ethnic Groups
- Italian (includes small clusters of German-, French-, and Slovene-Italians in the north, Albanian-Italians, Croat-Italians, and Greek-Italians in the south)
- National Holiday
- Republic Day, 2 June (1946)
- Geographic Coordinates
- 42 50 N, 12 50 E
- Location
- Southern Europe, a peninsula extending into the central Mediterranean Sea, northeast of Tunisia
- Airports
- 130
Destinations
Regions and cities, top sights, national parks, UNESCO sites, and festivals for visitors.
Rome — The Eternal City
No city in the Western world carries a heavier weight of history than Rome. For eight centuries Rome was the capital of an empire that stretched from Scotland to Mesopotamia, from the Sahara to the Rhine. It was in Rome that Julius Caesar was assassinated, that Augustus transformed the republic into an empire, that Constantine legalized Christianity, that Constantine's successors eventually lost the western empire to Gothic and Vandal invaders. After Rome's fall, the city became the seat of the Papacy, ensuring its continued centrality to European history throughout the medieval period and the Renaissance. Today, Rome is a city of nearly 2.9 million people, a functioning modern capital of a G7 nation, and simultaneously an open-air museum of almost incomprehensible richness. The Romans call their city la Città Eterna — the Eternal City — and the epithet is earned.
The Colosseum, or Colosseo, is the most iconic monument in Rome and arguably in the entire world. This enormous elliptical amphitheater, begun by Emperor Vespasian around 72 AD and completed under Titus in 80 AD, could hold between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators and was the site of gladiatorial combats, animal hunts, mock sea battles, and public executions that lasted for centuries.
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Health and Safety
Medical facilities, vaccinations, disease risk, and sanitation conditions.
Medical facilities are available but may be limited outside urban areas. Public hospitals, though generally free of charge for emergency services, sometimes do not maintain the same standards as hospitals in the United States, so you are encouraged to obtain insurance that would cover a stay in a private Italian hospital or clinic. It is almost impossible to obtain an itemized hospital bill from public hospitals, as required by many U.S.
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