Outside The Perimeter

Today we went back to the Centro Storico area so that we could explore the last sites of Rome. We had lasagna at this cute little bakery, Antico Forno Roscioli. A nice little Italian customer helped us order. By far, the best meal we’ve had in Europe! Unfortunately, it rained all afternoon so I can’t say that all of our pics are the best today. We visited the Piazzo Navona and Piazza Farnese right outside the French Embassy (where there were lots of armored cop vehicles today due to the bombings from an anarchist group of the Chilean and Swiss embassies). I hope this type of Rome action is not going to be a trend of our trip!

We took refuge from the rain in the Pantheon, a temple rebuilt in 126 AD (wow!). We witnessed the rain fall through the oculus in the center- very cool. With the damper of the rain, we sampled two gelato places- Della Palma and also the gelateria from Roman Holiday, Giolitti. Both places were good and dry! Most Italians plan their holiday festivities on Christmas Eve so we knew that open restaurants would be hard to come by this evening, so we ventured back to one of our favorites, Café Gina, to order takeout for dinner. It was nothing fancy, but so sweet and so delicious! Tonight was such a memorable experience at Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore for Christmas Eve mass. It was so exciting to witness Christmas festivities in the heart of Rome. We secured great seats about 45 minutes before the mass, and all was well until the tall couple who similarly resembled Kenny Rogers and Cruella de Vil arrived. This couple stood in front of an entire section of people blocking our view for about a half hour. With our newest Italian friends in the back row, we shuffled chairs around and Marshall even tried asking them to move. To no avail! Finally the couple found other seats and left us with great views for the remainder of the service. The sights, the sounds of the choir, the smell of the incense, and just being in the service felt very Christmasy!