New Milan-Tokyo direct flight
Anyone with their sights set on Japan next year will be happy to hear a new direct flight is scheduled to launch in early December.
READ ALSO: LISTED: The new direct flights to and from Italy this winter
Japanese airline ANA has announced a new direct route connecting Milan Malpensa to Tokyo Haneda will run every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday from December 3rd.
Rome’s Metro A line resumes full service
Rome’s Metro A line will resume its usual operating hours from Friday, December 6th, after closing earlier in the evening for nearly eight months to allow for track maintenance works ahead of the 2025 Jubilee Year.
The line has been closing at 9pm from Sunday to Thursday since April 8th, with bus replacement services running along the same route.
As of December 6th, the entire line will operate from 5.30am to 11.30pm from Sunday to Thursday, and from 5.30am to 1.30am on Fridays and Saturdays.
Milan celebrates Saint Ambrose
The city of Milan will commemorate its patron saint, Saint Ambrose, on December 7th.
The yearly Festa di Sant’Ambrogio usually gives workers in the northern city a day off, but falls on a Saturday this year, meaning most residents will already be home from work on that date.
The feast of St Ambrose is one of Milan’s most eagerly anticipated local festivals as it gives people in the northern metropolis a chance to catch up with family and friends, and unofficially kicks off the holiday season in the city.
It's also an opportunity to sample some home-made ambrosiani – traditional shortbread biscuits made to mark the occasion.
Feast of the Immaculate Conception
December 8th is a national public holiday in Italy marking the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Festa dell’Immacolata Concezione).
The holiday falls on a Sunday this year, which means that workers in Italy won’t get an extra day off for it (Italian public holidays aren’t moved to the nearest working day when they coincide with a weekend).
December 8th generally marks the beginning of the Christmas period nationwide, with most cities and towns putting up their Christmas decorations around this time.
It’s worth noting that everything starts to slow down in Italy from December 8th, especially admin-related procedures, so you might want to get any important paperwork done before then – or else it may have to wait until January 6th, when the Italian holidays unofficially end.
Christmas displays and markets
Italy goes all out for Christmas, as dozens of spectacular Christmas displays, including giant nativity sets and dazzling light shows, pop up all around the country in the lead up to the holidays.
Several cities in the south, including Greccio (Lazio) and Matera (Basilicata), are famous for their living nativity scenes, or presepi viventi, while the north of the country offers a number of cosy Christmas markets (mercatini di Natale).
READ ALSO: Italy's Christmas markets: Where and when to visit in 2024
Visitors to the markets will find plenty of artisanal food products and handcrafted items, and will also get a chance to feast on mulled wine, pretzels and traditional Christmas sweets.
Public transport strikes
The winter months are usually quieter when it comes to strikes affecting the transport sector, but there are still some protests which people travelling to, from or within Italy should be aware of in December.
A 24-hour general strike affecting airline, rail and public transport services across Italy has been called for Friday, December 13th.
Two days later, on Sunday, December 15th, passengers flying to, from or within Italy may face disruption due to a 24-hour air traffic control strike.
You can find further info about these and other protests planned for the coming weeks in our winter strike calendar.
Property tax on second homes
The second instalment of Italy's property tax on second homes – officially known as Imposta Municipale Unica (or IMU) – is due by Saturday, December 16th.
The tax is owed by all owners of a second home in Italy regardless of their nationality or residency status, but also applies to primary residences (prime case) in some rare cases.
The deadline for the first instalment was June 16th.
Shortest day of the year
Saturday, December 21st, will be the shortest day of the year in the Earth’s northern hemisphere, with people in Italy only getting between 8.5 and 9.5 hours of daylight depending on their location.
The phenomenon, known as winter solstice (or solstizio d’inverno in Italian), marks the moment when the Earth’s northern hemisphere is tilted the furthest away from the sun, which also coincides with the official beginning of astronomical winter.
Christmas holidays
This year’s Christmas holidays fall mid-week.
While Christmas Day (December 25th) and St Stephen’s Day (December 26th) are official public holidays in Italy, Christmas Eve (December 24th), also known as la vigilia, is not.
That said, many employers give workers the day off as a gesture of good will.
This year, you can expect many in the country to take Friday, December 27th, off work to ‘build’ an extra-long weekend, or ponte.
Thousands of Italians will be on the move over the December 23rd-29th week to spend the holidays with their families, so expect traffic on major roadways and crowded train stations and airports.
New Year's Eve celebrations
This year, we'll be ringing in the New Year on a Tuesday.
Many in Italy will celebrate Capodanno with the usual mix of raucous revelries, ‘good luck’ foods like lentils and cotechino (a slow-cooked sausage made of pork, lard, pork rind and spices) and superstitious rituals, including the practice of throwing old crockery out of windows.
Like anywhere else in the world, there will be plenty of celebrations going on on New Year’s Eve in Italy, but don’t worry: you’ll have time to recover on New Year’s Day (January 1st), which is a national public holiday.
Budget bill deadline
After lawmakers in the lower house of parliament approved a draft of Italy’s 2025 budget plan in late October, the upper house will now have until December 31st to give the bill the final go-ahead.
The 30-billion-euro package is expected to extend a series of tax cuts already in place for low-income households to next year.
The bill also includes a substantial public spending review, with all ministries except the health one required to cut their budgets by five percent.
Italy's government is planning to raise some 3.5 billion euros from domestic banks and insurers in 2025 via changes affecting the taxation of stock options for managers and rules governing banks' tax credits.
Rome – which has been targeted by the EU for its "excessive" deficit in recent years – is under intense pressure to balance its books and reduce a debt that's currently close to three trillion euros.
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