Rome Holiday - Christmas to New Years
 

Thanks to ALL the Fodorites who post on this forum and responded so kindly when I was hunting for a place to stay in Rome.
I booked our flights and the hotel. Now I am trying to figure out the Itinerary.

Here it is so far - what do you think?
Fri. 25 AM- Arrive FCO Christmas Day
Shuttle to AlbregoCesari (or last minute apartment if I convince DH)
Store Luggage
AM-Walk for 1-2 hrs (Jewish Ghetto?)
What shall we do if the weather is horrid (ie cold & raining hard) ?:-(
PM- More walking- Pantheon,Piazza Navona, Travestere-Santa Maria in Travestere, Palazzo Mattei di Giove
Dinner- Shall I arrange our dinner reservations now or when we arrive?
Midnight mass at the Pantheon? – despite some atheist family members…

Sat. 26
Ancient Rome Tour –ICON or Context tours,
Has anyone done the Underground Rome Tour ?

Sun. 27
AM-Vatican Museum- still need to get tkts
PM-Porta Portese Market (open Sunday only?)

Mon 28
AM- St Peters Tour/climb to dome, Sistine Chapel
PM- Basilica of San Clemente excavation Tour
Wander…..

Tues 29 (considered taking train Florence-for-the-day depending on family temperment at the time)
AM- Borghese Gallery
PM- Pallazzo Farnese

Thurs 31
AM - Castel Sant Angelo or a scheduled tour ie Caravaggio, etc...
PM - Wander...
New Years Eve Dinner - TBA?

Fri. Jan 1 AM –home

Kristina, - thank you for your Italy blog, I taught myself googlemaps and went mapcrazy
abranz - thank you for citing livingmocha on one of the threads. I am now learning some basic Italian for the trip and having a blast (driving DS nuts)
LowCountryIslander,Franco- my foodie DH & I appreciated all your TR work.

SO EXCITED but I know I have missed some things. Thanks everyone!

A lot of restaurants are closed on Christmas. While doing all that walking around that day, look for places that will be open, maybe you could reserve something that afternoon. Note that although museums, etc. are closed, most churches will be open. You can stop in any church you come to in Rome and see beautiful things.

The midnight mass is Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day, so you will be too late for that.

The Porta Portese is early in the morning. If this is your first trip to Rome, I probably wouldn't do that. There are just so many other great things to do in Rome!

You might want to try to do San Clemente after the Ancient Rome tour if you're not too tired, since it's very close (and not at all close to St. Peter's.

You left out Wednesday. Are you skipping that? :-d

For more information on Rome at Christmas, here is my trip report from when I was there at that time:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...oncello.cfm?63

lol, i guess that day fell into the bottomless pit of my planning frenzy. Thank you for giving me an extra day in Rome! :-D

You've left out some important things like shopping and having fun. Don't be too scheduled, but DO have dinner reservations for Christmas and New Year's Eve, lots of restaurants aren't open and others will be jammed.

There were great fireworks when I was in Rome on NYE.

tarquin- We are definitely going to have time for fun. My teen boys do like to shop a bit (they love browsing NYC as we live in a small town) and now that SusanP gave me back the Wednesday I'd forgotten, I feel better. The biggest issue for me is to determine where I MUST make reservations that time of year and where I can be flexible.
In trips to Disney when the boys were little and recent trips to NYC, I realized we do best if we have a half day scheduled (museum,historical sites,etc...) and leave the rest of the day flexible until dinner.

You have to have reservations for the Galleria Borghese. This is a fabulous place, especially if you like Bernini sculpture.

Although I haven't done it, the Vatican now has tickets that mean you don't have to wait in line. If you don't already know about that, do a search here for Vatican tickets for more information. I just noticed that you have the Sistine Chapel linked with St. Peter's on a different day from the Vatican. You have to go through the Vatican Museums to get to the Chapel, so you need to plan that along with the museum. If you exit the Chapel to the right (the tour group exit), it brings you out right at St. Peter's. Again if you're not too tired (you have energetic teens, right?), do St. Peter's right then rather than having to go back there on another day.

While I think you're smart with teenagers to not have every minute scheduled and to have your half-day plan, I would have some information on other things you are interested in, so you can look at your list and decide what you want to do for the other half of the day. This way, you can see what is close to where you've just finished and won't waste a lot of time getting to something only to find that it's closed that day.

Ok, I went to RoninRome and discovered how to make a reservation at the Borhese for my RomaPass. I love Bernini & I really want to go there as it was closed b/c of snow when we went to Rome in 1985.

SusanP- Thankyou so much for all the tips. I have gone back to my google map, grouped sites more appropriately, and checked opening/closing times. Also made "mini-lists" of things to do if time allows. The Vatican tips were great, I should have known many of these things ...especially that Wed. comes after Tues...and the timing of mass-eek.
I also realized we pass Castel Sant Angelo on our way to/from the Vatican from our hotel so we will see it that day (even if we don't tour it).

Please forgive me if the itinerary seems a bit jumbled. My FIL was just diagnosed w/Alzheimer's, had a psychotic episode, & lives 1200 miles away, so it's been a stressful week. Hard to stay focused on this trip... though we all need it.

The Vatican museums is closed on Sundays except for the last Sunday of the month when entrance is free. There will not be advance tickets available for the free Sunday and the lines will be very long. They operate on reduced hours (entrance from 9 - 12:30) on the free Sunday. I would plan to visit the museum on another day when it won't be so crowded. As SusanP stated, the Sistine Chapel is in the Vatican Museums.

I am going to try to switch the Vatican Museum(9-6) to Thursday. Preferably going to the Borghese on Tuesday.

On Sunday I thought we could see the Capitoline Museum (9-8pm), walk to the Mouth of Truth , & see the Pantheon (9-6) on the way back to the hotel.

Is it worth going up the Vittoriano to get an overview of Rome on the first day? We hope to climb to the dome of St Peters on the day we visit there (Thurs, Dec 31).