As well as official national holidays, every town and city has at least one or two local holidays. Many Italians still take their holiday in August; some businesses close for the entire month, others for one or two weeks, Everything, excepting traffic headed for the beach, slows down and the Versilian coastline becomes a temple to sunburn. National holidays are on the 1st & 6th of January, Easter Monday, the 25th of April, May the 1st, August the 15th (stay away from roads and rails!), November the 1st, and finally the 8th, 25th & 26th of December.

Throughout Tuscany and many other areas of Italy it is not unusual for pretty much all but food shops to be closed on Monday mornings and Saturday afternoons. Opening hours are ‘relaxed'; most shops and businesses will be closed from lunchtime until around four in the afternoon, when they will reopen until seven or eight in the evening. Wednesday is a popular day for half-day closing.