Christmas in Italy

There are concerts and events throughout the city leading up to XMAS. Christmas Eve things will start to shut down. On the Eve and XMAS day, there are primarily religous events going on. Christmas is far more religous in Italy than the States - children there get their presents on Janaury 6 and not Xmas day (although that does seem to be changing according to our Italian friends). You can go to midnight mass at any number of churches, or of course at St. Peters. On XMAS Day, the Pope does an address from the balcony of St. Peter's at 12 noon. After that, most of the city is closed up. And with XMAS on a Saturday this year, I'd imagine Sunday will also be a "slow" day. (although the Colosseo combo will be open on Sunday - The Vatican Museums will not be open on the 26th, despite this being the last Sunday of the month).

I visited the Vatican on a Christmas Eve and found light crowds, but the next day we used for travelling to the North for as Ron said, things pretty much come to a halt in Rome on Christmas Day except the Trevi Fountain