Christmas in Italy: where to photograph in December

The hour that matters

Whatever the city, the picture happens in the forty minutes around sunset. The lights are switched on while the sky still holds a deep blue, and for about half an hour the two are of equal strength — the stone stays warm, the sky reads blue rather than black, faces are lit from the front by the market lamps. Twenty minutes later the sky is black, the lamps burn out against it, and the photograph looks like everyone else's.

So: daylight for the architecture, the last forty minutes and the half hour after for the lights. A sixty-minute session covers one of the two. Two hours covers both and is the shape we would suggest for a family — the cold part lands at the end, with something hot in hand.

Rome: Piazza Navona and the quiet mornings

Rome is the mildest of the big December cities — often twelve or thirteen degrees in the afternoon — and the one where a morning session still works properly. The historic centre before nine is as empty as it ever gets: the Spanish Steps, the Trevi fountain and the Pantheon portico belong to a handful of people rather than a crowd, and the low sun comes down the narrow streets in a way it never does in July.

For the season itself, Piazza Navona holds Rome's Christmas fair around Bernini's fountains from early December to Epiphany, and the square is at its best in the blue half hour, when the stalls are lit and the Sant'Agnese façade is not yet lost to the dark. Saint Peter's Square carries the city's largest nativity and its tree from early December, and the colonnade at dusk is one frame no other capital has. Via del Corso and the streets around the Spanish Steps carry the light installations; the shopping crowd peaks between four and seven, so work the ends of the day rather than the middle of it.

Florence: a small city that lights well

Florence in December is the one time the historic centre can be walked at a normal pace. The Santa Croce square hosts a German-style Christmas market for a fortnight in the run-up to the holiday, wooden huts against the striped marble of the basilica, and it is compact enough that a whole session fits in one square. The F-Light festival projects onto façades across the city in the same weeks, changing from year to year; check what is running the week you travel.

The classic frames work better in winter than in summer for a simple reason: Piazzale Michelangelo at sunset is nearly empty in December, and the light across the Arno at that hour turns the rooftops copper. Ponte Vecchio from the Santa Trinita bridge, the Boboli terraces, the Duomo from the side streets — all of them lose their queues and gain their light.

Venice: the empty version

Venice in December is the version regular visitors never see. Fog is common, the tide is unpredictable, and the city is half as busy as in spring. Saint Mark's Square with a tree in it and no crowd around it is a photograph you cannot take in any other month, and the light in fog does the work of a softbox.

Two practical notes. High water is part of December: the forecast is published daily, the raised walkways go up when it is due, and it changes nothing about a session except which squares are walkable. And the New Year is different again — 31 December fills the basin with people for the concert and the fireworks; for pictures, the days between Christmas and New Year are the calm ones.

Verona, Milan and the north

Verona hangs an enormous steel comet star from the Arena into Piazza Bra every Christmas, and the market around it runs through Advent. The Arena, the star and the lit square in one frame is the single most recognisable Italian Christmas picture, and the city is small enough to add the Adige bridges and Piazza delle Erbe in the same hour.

Milan is the December city of the north: the tree in front of the Duomo, the Galleria under its lights, the Oh Bej Oh Bej fair around Sant'Ambrogio in early December. The Duomo terraces are open in winter and nearly empty; the light from the roof at four in the afternoon is the best thing in the city at that hour.

Further up, the Alpine markets are a different country. Bolzano, Merano, Bressanone and Brunico run the biggest of them from late November to early January, and the Dolomites behind them give you snow, which the rest of Italy cannot promise. If snow is the point of the trip, this is where to go — and a winter session there is worth two hours rather than one.

What to wear, and what December asks of you

Coats in saturated colours — camel, burgundy, forest green, deep grey — photograph far better than technical outerwear, and market lights are warm, so warm tones sit naturally in them. Avoid white, which lamps turn orange, and hoods that swallow a face. Bring shoes that survive wet stone: Venetian stone, Florentine flagstones and Roman cobbles are all slippery when damp.

Rome and Naples are mild, Florence and Verona are cold in the evening, Milan and the mountains are properly cold. Dress for standing still outdoors for an hour, not for walking.

Markets and installations are run by their operators and their dates move every year; the churches and museums have their own rules on photography, and they change. A couple or a family walking through a public square with a photographer is unremarkable, but anything that looks like a production — a tripod in an aisle, lights, a group blocking a stall — is worth asking about first.

Booking a December session

December fills early, and the two weeks before Christmas are the busiest fortnight of the Italian year in the cities that do it well. Photographers in Rome, Florence and Verona take Advent bookings well ahead, so plan further out than you would for spring.

A family or couples session starts at €319 all-inclusive for sixty minutes, €569 for two hours and €799 for three. A proposal in the blue half hour at Piazza Navona or under Verona's star is the seasonal version of the most common request we get. You can browse photographers and book online, and how it works explains the rest.