Rome at Christmas

Rick has free iPod tours you can download via this website. Rome will be busy during Christmas but you can reserve tickets to the Vatican Museum: http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html

If your friends live in Rome or have visited before I wouldn't bother booking a tour of the city. It's very easy to navigate and there are some really good walking tours both in guide books and online that you can download and listen to as you explore. You don't need a tour of the colosseum but you might want one of the forum as it is not well signed. I would suggest a tour of the vatican museums and you can book those online. http://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/do?weblang=en&do My advice is to read up on the city so you are familiar with the sites you'll be seeing. There are lots of different guide books out there so go to the book store and look at each of them. Some have very in depth information and some just have basic information. Choose the one (or ones) that you like the best. You might also want to pick up a map. I like the pocket pilot maps because they are so small but very detailed. Donna

Kim: We found the money we spent on tours in two places to be well-worth the price becasue of the depth of understanding we achieved and the freedom to get our noses out of the guidebook. Francesca Caruso took us through the Colosseum, Palatine, and Forum for 3-4 hours on our first day, and it gave us a fabulous grounding in Rome history and architecture. We called on these insights as we explored Rome the remaining 4 days of our stay. Francesca charges by the hour, but you get her all to yourselves. Since this is her livelihood, she has details and insights a typical resident might not have. We also had a guided tour through the Vatican called the Pristine Sistine with Walks in Italy. They took a small group of 12 (maximum) to the Sistine before the crowds arrived, then back-tracked through the museums. Perfect! Not cheap, but a very special way to experience this complex adn interesting place. Francesca may also do a Vatican Tour. Worth asking her.

Kim-we were in Italy this past Christmas & New Year's and really enjoyed the trip. Plan on some rain in Rome and have an appropriate jacket. Your friends may be able to supply umbrellas, depending on the forecast each day. When we arrived at the Colosseum ticket window with our Roma passes, we were given the option of joining an Underground Tour departing in a few minutes for a few more Euros (don't remeber the exact price but I think it was less than 10 Euros). This allowed us to go thru the gate that regular visitors can't access, and walk thru some of the passages that were originally used to flood the arena for mock naval battles and see lower levels of the Colosseum and a closer look at the seating section that Mussolini had restored (poorly) back in the 1930's. The tour then proceeded into the stands for a look at the structure the rest of the paying public gets to see.

The tour consisted of a bunch of rowdy Austrailian students who looked like they would rather be someplace else, and their scowling teacher, and us 2 Americans, so the tour was totally in English. I don't recall if we had to specify an "English Tour," or if it just worked out that way.

Your friends will likely show you many, but check out the presepi all around town.

Also, there was conflicting information about what was going to be open or closed for holidays. We toured the ruins at Pompeii on New Year's Day, which had shortened hours, but we'd been told thru several sources that the site would not even be open. Some Greek ruins in Sicily were closed when we were told they would be open. You might need to make some phone calls that day, if you are considering sightseeing.