In depth · Christmas & New Year
Christmas in Tuscany: markets, lights and nativity scenes
Tuscany dresses for Christmas square by square. Florence lights its trees and projects light onto its palaces, Siena fills the Campo with a medieval-style market, and the hill towns of Montepulciano and Arezzo turn their great squares into Christmas villages until Epiphany.
Updated October 2026
Florence: lights, trees and a market in Santa Croce
Florence switches on its Christmas season in early December: in 2025 the lights went on from 6 December, with illuminated firs in Piazza del Duomo and on Piazzale Michelangelo, the shopping streets dressed in lights and videomapping projected onto the Palazzo Vecchio and the Ponte Vecchio (Visit Tuscany).
In Piazza Santa Croce, a German-style Christmas market of wooden stalls sells crafts from across Europe, sausages, pretzels, strudel and mulled wine; last season it ran from 15 November to 21 December. Up the hill, Fiesole decorates its streets and Piazza Mino from 7–8 December until Epiphany.
Our advice: walk up to Piazzale Michelangelo after dark for the tree and the lit city below.
Siena: the Mercato nel Campo
For a few days in early December, Piazza del Campo becomes a great market of more than 140 stalls, selling local produce and goods from other Italian regions and Europe; in 2025 it was held on 6, 7 and 8 December (Visit Tuscany). It is the moment to buy Siena’s Christmas sweets, panforte and ricciarelli.
Our advice: go in the morning, before the square fills, and look down on the stalls from the Torre del Mangia.
Montepulciano’s Christmas village
Montepulciano turns its Piazza Grande and the streets around it into a Christmas village of decorations, food, sweets, leather goods and local crafts. Last season it opened on 22 November and ran until 6 January, at weekends until 20 December and then every day (Visit Tuscany).
Our advice: combine it with a cellar visit and a night in the Val d’Orcia.
Lucca and Pisa
Lucca holds a market of wooden chalets in Piazza Napoleone from late November until after Christmas, a creative and artisan market in Piazza San Frediano from 8 December to 6 January, and the Lucca Magico Natale programme of nativity scenes, a Santa’s village and ice skating across the city (Visit Tuscany).
In Pisa, wooden-chalet markets, an ice rink and a big wheel appear between late November and early December, around Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, the Logge di Banchi and the Giardino Scotto.
Arezzo’s Tyrolean village
Arezzo fills its sloping Piazza Grande with wooden houses where exhibitors from Tyrol, Germany and Austria sell Christmas specialities, with events for children and adults; last season it ran from 15 November to 6 January, Thursday to Sunday (Visit Tuscany).
Nativity scenes and Epiphany
Nativity scenes (presepi) appear in churches and squares across Tuscany. At Santa Brigida, in the hills above Pontassieve east of Florence, a living nativity with around 60 people recreates Bethlehem in a natural amphitheatre below the church, on 24 and 26 December and 6 January (Visit Tuscany).
The season ends at Epiphany, 6 January, when most markets close and the trees come down.
Our advice: Christmas Day and 1 January are quiet, with many restaurants closed or fully booked: reserve well ahead.
Dates above are from the 2025 season (Visit Tuscany). Each town publishes its 2026 programme in the autumn: check before you travel.