Planning: When to go?

My first trip to Italy was in late February/ early March.   The weather was cooler, some rain, and it was definitely the "lower" season tourist-wise.  As we thought about this next trip, and when would be the best time to go, we looked toward fall.  Fall, primarily, since that is when my birthday is (and that is the initial reason for the trip).  September still seems to be part of the higher season for tourism (but honestly when is it not a good time to visit Italy?), as well as a busy time of year at work; so we turned to mid or late October.

The October temperatures seem to be pretty decent.  Lows in the 50 degree F range and highs in the mid 60 degree range up to 70 degrees F.  In doing some research October kind of starts the "lower" tourism season as well.  However, 2016 is a Holy Year declared by Pope Francis - so visitors could be high all year.

While watching flight options for a few months, it didn't seem to matter much if we went early or late October as cost was very similar.  In February we finally pulled the trigger and snapped up a good flight deal, price-wise and travel-time wise departing October 12.