Brief Trip Report: Late December in Rome
 

Hi Everyone,

My track record for finishing trip reports is pretty bad. I am only posting a really brief report on our most recent jaunt. I say brief, because if I say long and detailed, I know I will never finish it.

Back in early September, we found good deals on business class tickets to Rome for late December. We flew to Rome from Newark on Continental the day after Christmas and returned on New Year's Day. We paid $1500 a ticket, which is a pretty good deal (I think) for nonstop business service.

For our 5 day trip, we rented an apartment at Palazzo Olivia. http://www.palazzo-olivia.it/. Our apartment was Basilio. The cost was about 200 Euro per night and for us it was a wonderful stay! The apartment itself is located in a perfect location on a tiny ally between Campo de' Fiori and Piazza Navona. Our one bedroom was spotlessly clean, comfortable and nicely decorated - just like the website. The owners are around much of the time and they leave their cell phone numbers in case you need them when they aren't around (we didn't).

Thank you to everyone who has written about Palazzo Olivia on this site because without you I probably wouldn't have found it and it really is a great place. I definitely think you can find cheaper alternatives, but Olivia was really nice!

During our five days we didn't have much of an agenda other than a day trip to Naples and a tour with Context Rome entitled: Holiday Walk: The Tradition of Italian Nativities. But as usual we kept ourselves very busy.

Just like all of Context's tours, the Context Rome Holiday Walk was fantastic - I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who is in Rome during the Christmas season.

Besides our fun trip to Naples and the Context Rome walk, the highlights for us were seeing St. Peter's nativities and then just the overall feel of Rome.

As unusual we ate and drank well. We had breakfast basically everyday at Forno on Campo de' Fiori. They have the most fantastic bread with tomato sauce on it! And for lunch most days, we got sandwiches at a place whose name is escaping me, but is located right off the Campo. In the afternoons, we would usually get a drink somewhere and possibly a pastry. And then our big meal was dinner. We also enjoyed Lucifero and Portico.

For New Year's Eve, we struggled with whether or not we should go with the set menu or not. Most of the places seemed to hover around 120-130 euro per person, but some were as low as 60-70 euro. However, my husband has a dairy allergy and we noticed that every menu had dairy and thus we decided to bar hop. It worked out spledidly. We went to about 5 places getting a drink and having a bite to eat. And then we went home a bit before midnight.

We really loved the feel of Rome in late December. The weather was fall-like to us. We both wore fall wool jackets with fleece vests underneath and leather gloves and felt perfectly comfortable the whole time.

Anyway, it was a perfect trip!

If you have any questions, let me know!

Sally

Hi Sally, Your holiday time in Rome sounds delightful and the way I like to travel. I cannot eat dairy products either so I am always leary of set menu's as there is always dairy products in the dishes it seems. Your New Years Eve sounds like a lot of fun! Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

Ooooh I miss Rome!

Was the sandwich shop off Campo Aristocampo? We loved it.

Thanks for the report! My family will be spending Thanksgiving in Rome next year and I can hardly wait. It will be my first visit to Rome in the autumn/winter season so I appreciate your feedback on the weather you experienced. We're based in Colorado so I can't imagine it would be much colder in Rome than at home ;-)

The sandwich place was called something like Baccanale. It was down the main drag out of Campo de' Fiori if you were heading toward Piazza Navona (so sort of north). They have a restaurant on the main campo, but the sandwich part is just off the street. Gosh I wish I had one of those sandwiches now - and they were only 3.50E!