Christmas Eve in Rome

24 December 2008. On Wednesday the 24th, we had breakfast of Tea and Yogurt and slept again until 8:00 AM. At 9 we set out to get our tickets for Midnight Mass at St Peters. We walked past Castle Saint Angelo where I discovered I could take no more pictures (problems with my camera). Luckily Brian had his new camera! We crossed the Tiber River on Umberto Bridge taking pictures of St Peters in the background from the bridge.

We walked by the Villa Borghese and down the main Rome business street, Via del Corso.

We saw and took pictures of the column of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. It is very impressive.
We got our tickets from Sister Yvonne at the College of North American bishops. She was very friendly and advised us to get there early and beware of nuns rushing the lines at the last moment!

On our return trip we walked by and took pictures of the Trevi Fountain.

No coins at this time but Brian returned later in the week and tossed his so he will return!

Next we visited the Pantheon and had lunch outside.

I had ravioli which was quite good. I learned at this time that public toilets do not have seats. This was a continuing issue with me and Brian had to listen to my complaints every day.

At one time, several days later, I came back to our restaurant table in tears because my legs wouldn’t support me and I went to the floor which had been peed on. Oh well, so much good happened that we can forget about that; I just had to include it to justify my complaining.
Continuing on the 24th, we walked up Victor Emanuel II and crossed the Tiber on his bridge.

We visited St Peter’s Square and shopped for an hour.

We walked home and took a nap to prepare for the evening and night to come. We went to St Peter’s Square and got in line at 5:45 PM. We were fairly close to the front, considering the line of thousands of people eventually wrapped around the entire square. We were allowed in the Basilica at 10:30 PM. We met very nice people in line. Mark and Rachel were teachers from LA on their honeymoon and are keeping in touch with Brian. Folks from Michigan, whose daughter was spending a semester in Rome. The father and son had gone to Notre Dame and the daughter attends St Mary’s in South Bend. A family was in line in front of us, not knowing they needed tickets to get in. Thankfully they found out early and didn’t waste their night. It was a mad rush to get in and some of the nuns really were cutting in line. Who is going to stop them? For many of them this was probably their once in a lifetime visit to see the Holy Father. We found good seats with only one couple between me and the aisle. I could almost touch the Pope when he passed. Brian got a really good picture. It was wonderful. I am tearing up as I write this. Mass was in Latin and it was a real treat. At 2:00 AM we were on our way home.