Category: Trips

The Christmas season in Rome begins early in December with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Since the majority of Italians are Catholic, the feasts and rituals of that faith dominate the celebrations. Christmas ends with the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. It is said that this latter feast is as special for children as Christmas Day!

Over the 2023-2024 season, I participated in a small group tour called “Rome for the Holidays.” There were seven of us and it was a truly memorable trip. We met in Rome on December 28th and flew home on January 9th. Our trip was led by Marie Fratoni and all the travelers were women business owners, so we used the time as a retreat to review the past year, release what needed to be released and renew our bodies and minds in preparation for the coming year. Transportation, accommodations, itinerary, private tour guide and reservations were all handled elegantly by Life Beyond The Room.

Unlike most out-of-the-box tours, we had time for leisurely breakfast each day (ncluded with the boutique hotel), free time for our transformational sessions and private jaunts (I went down the street to a Van Gogh exhibit that happened to be in town. What a treat!) Our pace was somewhat slower so we had time to savor our meals and spend a lot of time at the sites we went to. We had a food tasting tour in the Jewish Quarter one day and a cooking class at a chef’s home another day. And there were massages! Yum!

Of course, we went to the Vatican one of our first days. I have studied some art history and have seen a lot of Michelangelo’s and Raphael’s work in Florence and elsewhere, but seeing the Sistine Chapel and the amazing tapestries, statuary and architecture was a feast for the eyes and spirit!

Here are some ideas for celebrating Christmas and New Year’s in Rome.

Nativity Scenes

On December 8th, the first Christmas celebrations are held on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Churches throughout Rome (throughout all of Italy, in fact) unveil their nativity scenes, called presepi. Go to the Piazza del Popolo in Rome to see hundreds of these presepi. You can view a life-sized one at St. Peter’s Square.

Food

You can’t celebrate Christmas in Rome without partaking of the incredible cuisine. Natives of Italy actually fast (abstain from food) during Christmas Eve day. That’s because the evening brings an amazing meal! The Christmas Eve meal features fish, since Catholics do not eat meat on the night before a major holiday. But fish is served in multiple ways, and the meal often features at least seven different kinds of fish and seafood dishes. Enjoy linguine and clams, shrimp, cod, and eel at this opulent Christmas Eve meal.

Meals celebrating New Year feature pork instead. Sausages and roast pork are traditionally served, along with lentils. The rich meat and coin-shaped lentils symbolize the richness of the upcoming year.

Whether it’s Christmas or New Year’s feasting, restaurants in Rome pull out all the stops to serve amazing cuisine. Make sure to partake of at least one of these special meals during your visit.

Fireworks

New Year’s Eve is an excellent time for viewing fireworks in Rome. Along with the fireworks, there are often special bands and shows. If you stay up until midnight, you will see the displays at their peak. Wear red! It’s a sign of good luck for the upcoming year.

St. Stephen’s Day

Called La Festa di Santo Stefano, this holiday on December 26th is very important in Italy. It marks the day the wise men came to visit baby Jesus. Be prepared for many restaurants and other public places to be closed, but in Rome there are still some museums that are open. So as you plan your holiday in Rome, plan for December 26 to be a fairly quiet day. It can actually be a nice relief from all the crowds and festivities if you plan on it.

The Feast of the Epiphany

This is the final holiday of the Christmas season, and it’s the gift-giving day – January 6th. This is traditionally a day spent with family, as most businesses are closed. The night before, children set out shoes or stockings to be filled with gifts.

There are many other places to visit and things to see in Rome. Be sure to take in all the sights and scents of Rome during your holiday visit.

I know that probably sounds like a contradiction, but hear me out and I’ll tell you my story.

In February of 2018, Der Weg Ins Blaue (The Way Into Blue), an encaustic painting by Paul Klee, was on loan to the Modern Art Museum in Munich as part of a retrospective of his work they presented. A small group of board members and docents from The Old Jail Art Center (home of the painting), including yours truly, went to Munich for the Exhibit Opening celebrations.

A friend and I spent the entire week in Munich visiting art museums and enjoying the heart of the city. One of our group members had arranged a guide who led us on several guided excursions. She was charming, very knowledgeable and clearly passionate about Bavarian history. At the end of the week, my friend flew home to the US and I flew…to Florence!

A Whole New World

I had never been to Florence, or any other part of Italy, before. And here I was – all alone. But fortunately I had planned ahead. I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Novoli, right in the heart of the University and across the street from a lovely park that contained, among other things, the new Palace of Justice (City Hall). Novoli is a newer area, so the streets are wide and the neighborhood is fairly quiet.

The hotel was quite comfortable, though not fancy. The staff was very accommodating, helping me with bus tickets and directions to local shops. I had breakfast (included) every day at the hotel and sometimes dinner as well. The food was good and the service was charming. I had a short walk to the bus that took me downtown and dropped me off at the central train station where all the trains and tour buses depart.

In the beginning I was a bit intimidated to be in a foreign country I had never been to before and whose language I did not speak or understand. But I started off with some goals: I wanted to see as much art as possible and I wanted to absorb as much history as possible. To facilitate both goals, I booked several guided excursions through Viator.

Skip-the-line Duomo Terraces and Dome Climb Tour in Florence
from: Viator Inc

Guided Excursions

First I booked two tours in Florence: a walking tour of the old city, including the Academia, in the morning and a guided tour of the Uffizi in the afternoon. Both museums are fabulous, if you’re into art, and I have been back to both since that trip. I could have spent all day at the Uffizi and probably have wanted to go back the next day.

I also booked full-day tours going out to Cortona/Assizi and another day to Siena, San Gimignano and Pisa. The guides spoke excellent English and filled the drive time with interesting highlights of the country we were traveling through and prepared us for what we would experience when we arrived at our destination. The vans and buses were quite comfortable.

The last tour I booked was a high-speed train ride to Venice that included a ticket on the water taxi. Once in Venice, I was on my own to explore, shop and eat. I only had to make it back to the train station in time to catch the last train back to Florence. Can’t wait to go back to Venice! I’d like to spend a whole week there.

Lessons Learned

The point of this story is to say that, even though I was traveling solo, thanks to Viator I was able to enjoy the scenery and be chauffeured to a number of Italy’s most charming cities and towns with a lovely group of companions and an expert guide. It made what could have been a confusing and frustrating journey an absolute pleasure instead.

There is one thing I would do differently, though. I would plan more “free time” to rest or walk around and explore things at my leisure. In fact, I did that on my next trip to Florence. It was quite nice.

Skip-the-line Duomo Terraces and Dome Climb Tour in Florence
from: Viator Inc

The day after the Ida O’Keefe exhibit in Dallas, I drove to Houston to visit the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. It was the last day for their Portraits of the Royals exhibit. I’m so glad I went! In addition to fabulous portraiture, beginning with King Henry VII, the exhibit was a visual history lesson! The signage that accompanied the portraits was very informative, giving relationships to other portraits along with personal details. Some were quite juicy!

I was intrigued to learn that Queen Victoria was a HUGE fan of publishing family photographs. She often had them made into postcards for distribution and sent them to family and friends with personal notes. And I was reminded that the current royal family, the Windsor’s are not, in fact, English, nor was their name Windsor. It was changed to that after World War I because they are actually German, which at the time was not, how shall I say, fashionable.

Apparently we were not allowed to take photographs in that exhibit because I have exactly none. Nor does the museum have any photos. I checked.

However, we could take photos in other parts of the museum, so I snapped a couple of pics of Maria Martinez’ pottery because it is just so outstanding. She is, hands down, one of my favorite artists.

As a single woman during the Depression, her resources and choices were limited. She worked very hard and moved around the country a lot, but she never lost sight of her identity as an artist.

I purchased this book, Ida O’Keefe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow, from the museum, but you can pick it up from Amazon. In full disclosure, if you purchase through that link I will earn a small commission which I will appreciate very much and that helps me continue posting about my travels.

I am not a huge fan of Art Deco or Abstract art, but I was fascinated by the evolution of Ida’s work that was clearly displayed in the exhibit. And I was impressed that she actually printed her own textbooks for her classes. Another striking comparison was between Ida’s art and Georgia’s. There were a couple of comparison examples there. One was a famous painting of Georgia’s of a seashell. In her painting that’s all there is, the shell. In Ida’s painting of the same still life, you see the shell in its surroundings, quite a charming scene.

Both Ida and Catherine were talented artists but Georgia let it be known that there was only room for one artist in the family and she was it. Sadly, Catherine gave up painting altogether, but Ida was not to be deterred. She left home and continued to practice her art for her whole life. Lacking a powerful sponsor like Alfred Stieglitz, she struggled become known and have her art promoted but she did not let that stop her either.

The next day I drove to Houston to visit the Museum of Fine Arts Houston with my sister. I’ll write a separate post about that experience.