The best time for Florence is late July — the W.C. Handy Music Festival runs for ten days from the last week of July into the first of August, with free outdoor concerts in Wilson Park, the Indian Mound, and venues across the Shoals. It is the most authentic blues festival in the region and worth timing a trip around.
April to early June and September to October give the best weather — warm but not oppressively humid. Mid-summer is steamy and the cicadas are loud; winter is mild but most outdoor activity slows. The annual Alabama Renaissance Faire the last weekend of October is a long-running, slightly eccentric local event with jousting, period costume, and street markets in Wilson Park.