NickyW

My finance and I are planning our honeymoon in Italy.
We were planning to leave on April 28th and return May 12, which would be perfect, but then we read in some of the reviews that Italy is busy the week of April 25th-holiday and May 01st-Italy's labour day because many Italians take this week off. So we were thinking of maybe doing May 05th to May 19th instead.

Any suggestions on whether May 01st week will be busier and whether it would be best to leave the following week, on May 05th instead?

P_M

I was in the Amalfi coast around in late April/early May this year and it was fantastic. What part of Italy are you planning to see?

yipper

To me Italy is always crowed with tourist. I spent the month of Sept. there and was stressed by the crowds, but off the beaten path just a little it was great. Rome, Florence, Cinqua Terra were filled wtih maddening crowds. Lake Como, Tuscany and Levanto were delightful. I can not give you specifics about May, but any famous tourist town will be crowed almost any time of the year.

aprillilacs

I was in Sorrento, Capri, and the Amalfi Coast the first week of May, including the May 1 holiday. The crowds were distressing. I would recommend delaying until the following week if you can manage it easily.

Ackislander

The crowds will be particularly heavy on trains and on the highways. If you can't delay, plan to stay put for the busiest days.

bvlenci

The Amalfi Coast will be very busy the entire month of May, or any time after Easter; I don't think there's a huge difference the first week.

This year the 25th of April (the celebration of the liberation of Italy from the German occupation after World War II) and the 1st of May (Labor Day in most of the world) are both on Fridays. Since both are national holidays, Italians can get 10 days straight of holiday by taking only 4 vacation days from work. Many Italians take advantage of this to go somewhere for the week. However, this doesn't mean that all of Italy is crowded.

Beach locations will usually not be crowded, because Italians don't trust the weather to be suitable for the seaside. A lot of Italians will visit their "art cities", but others will leave those cities to go somewhere in the countryside. It tends to balance out.

We once spent the 25th of April through the 1st of May in Tuscany. There were some towns (San Gimignano in particular) that were rather crowded, but those towns tend to be crowded eight months of the year. I've also spent that period in Rome and didn't notice more crowding than on other weekend as the same time of the year.

I suggest you try a little experiment: Choose one of the cities you want to visit, and pick a date in that week. Then go to www.booking.com to see how many hotels (in total) are available for that week. Then try a date 7 days earlier and a date 7 days later. I doubt that you'll see much of a difference in the number of hotels available, apart from the fact that every week gets a little more crowded as you head towards the summer.