We have booked a place called Lounge &Home Miracle Suite for the week has anyone had experience with this apartment? Reviews are great but I have never used an air b&b for overseas travel. It is located on passegiatta di ripeetta 25.
Also has anyone had experience getting tickets for the Christmas Eve mass at the Vatican? Any restaurant recommendations? Any other suggestions about things to do during the Christmas week would be so much appreciated!!
Vatican ◊
Easter Sunday Mass & Christmas Eve Mass are traditionally celebrated at St Peter's Basilica.
Capacity is limited and it can be very hard sometimes to get tickets for these events so you must book far in advance, no less than 2 months usually.
Reservation Procedure:
The best way to get your ticket for Easter/Christmas Masses is to send your request directly to the Vatican between 6 to 2 months in advance.
If the number of your request is not very large, lets say a family numbering 2-6 tickets you will have a bigger chance of getting your tickets.
Normally the Vatican will reply to your home address with a letter notifying you that they have received your request and where to take the letter at the Vatican to collect tickets.
They will not confirm tickets have been issued until you go to the prefecture office for collection.
There you will either receive your tickets or a letter to say there was not enough availability.
Again, the sooner you make you reservation the more chance there is of availability.
The smaller the number of tickets requested the higher the chance of having your request granted so we suggest don't book extra tickets unnecessarily.
If you order a large number of tickets such a group or more than 10 tickets we recommend you to send the request together with a letter of your parish or some authority of the church.
Tickets are collected at the Preffetura Vaticana located just after the "Bronze Doors" at St Peter's Basilica normally from 5-4 days days before the event from 8am till 6 or 7pm depending if it's winter or summer
vatican logo TICKETS ARE ALWAYS FREE !!!
Events at Christmas.
https://travel2next.com/christmas-in-rome/
Edit : reservations for restaurants between December 24 and Jan 2 almost a must.
The apartment is beautiful, I’m sure you’ll enjoy your stay. Location is pretty good, you should be able to walk everywhere. Longest walks will be to the Vatican and Colosseum. Each about 40-45 minutes. Almost all others 30 minutes. Unless you stop along the way.
One of my favorite restaurants is this one. Be sure to make reservations as early ( before you leave ) as possible.
We spent Christmas in London and flew to Rome 12/28 and stayed until Jan 3. Book as many of your restaurants for dinner as you possibly can;
It was very crowded during our stay but the majority of the tourists were Italian enjoying their own country, city. . Sometimes the side streets were packed solid with people.
Book anything else you would like to do in advance as well, walking tours, food tours.
Because it is a holiday, some tours we wanted were not being offered. Be flexible and go with what is available.
Special New Year’s eve dinners were very late and lasted hours., very pricey too, like 150€ pp. We skipped these. Some restaurants were serving dinner at normal hours.
The Christmas decorations were very pretty, tiny lights strung across the streets.
It sounds like you will be staying near the Pantheon. We enjoyed both seafood focused La Rosetta and Armando al Pantheon for dinner which be near your AirBnB.
