Christmas in Rome

Tour Overview

Experience the festive magic of Rome this Christmas with a special family-friendly tour through the Eternal City. Explore Rome’s most vibrant Christmas market on stunning Piazza Navona, and learn all about Italy's unique holiday traditions. Discover magnificent churches, shop along Via dei Coronari, and admire the city’s world famous Christmas lights. Our tour concludes in St. Peter’s Square, with its breathtaking nativity scene and soaring Christmas tree - an unforgettable finale to your festive adventure in Rome. Buon Natale!

Tour Description

Explore Rome’s Favorite Christmas Market at Piazza Navona

 

Our tour begins right in the heart of Rome’s historic center, home to one of the city’s most enduring Christmas traditions. This is the iconic Piazza Navona, a sweeping square dominated by a series of fountains and churches designed by Baroque masters Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini that will quite simply take your breath away. 

Each December the fabulous piazza is transformed into Rome’s oldest and most vibrant Christmas market, where locals and visitors alike sample festive treats like roasted chestnuts and mulled wine as they browse stalls selling all manner of craft and artisan gifts. Beautifully illuminated by Christmas lights, at the center of the square stands a charming 19th-century carousel that whirls merrily round and round all day long.

The festivities conclude on January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany, when Italy’s answer to Santa Claus, a kindly witch known as La Befana, swoops into the square bearing gifts and sweets for the gathered children. Piazza Navona’s Christmas market is the epicenter of holiday cheer in Rome, and it’s the perfect place to begin our festive stroll!

 

Renaissance splendor in Santa Maria Dell'Anima and Santa Maria Della Pace 

 

Next we’re going to take a peek inside two of central Rome’s most beautiful - and overlooked - churches. Just steps from Piazza Navona, fascinating Santa Maria Dell'Anima has been home to the city's German community since the 15th century, and this Renaissance gem is chock-full of artistic masterpieces, opulent decorations and vibrant stained glass.

A short distance away is the no less-impressive Santa Maria Della Pace, where we will have the unique opportunity to admire Raphael’s sensational frescoes depicting the ancient sibyls who predicted the upcoming birth of Christ to the pagans - this is one of Rome’s finest Renaissance artworks, and one that far too visitors to the city get the chance to see. 

 

Shopping on Historic Via Dei Coronari  

 

Continuing our tour, we’ll take a stroll down one of the most picturesque streets in all of Rome. Tracing the route of the ancient Via Recta, Via dei Coronari was originally created by Pope Sixtus IV in the 15th century as a new, direct path for pilgrims heading towards St. Peter’s Basilica across the Tiber. 

Following in their footsteps, we’ll learn how the street owes its name to the vendors who once sold rosary beads, or "corone di rosario," to the eager visitors. Lined with Renaissance palaces, during the holiday season Via dei Coronari comes alive with festive lights and decorations, and its many elegant boutiques and antique shops offer up fantastic opportunities for some Christmas shipping with a difference!

 

Ponte St. Angelo and Castel St. Angelo 

 

Retracing the route of generations of pilgrims, we will eventually reach Ponte Sant Angelo, better known as the Bridge of Angels. Connecting Castel Sant’Angelo on the Tiber’s western bank to the city’s historic center across the river, the bridge is one of only two river crossings in Rome to have survived largely intact from antiquity, and was completed during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian in 134 AD.

The bridge became the most important route to the Vatican for pilgrims in the Christian era, and is probably most famous for the stunning sculptures of angels bearing the instruments of Christ’s martyrdom that Baroque master Gianlorenzo Bernini installed here to guide pilgrims on their way as they flooded across the Tiber towards St. Peter’s in the 17th-century.

On our tour you’ll learn about the history of Castel Sant’Angelo itself - the imposing structure began life as the grand mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian in antiquity before being repurposed as a fortress, a prison, a papal hideout and finally a magnificent palace in the Renaissance. 

 

The Borgo and Baby Hatch at Santo Spirito 

 

Next our route will take us through the neighborhood known as the Borgo. Located between Castel Sant’Angelo and St. Peter’s Basilica, this beautiful district sprung up in the Middle Ages to provide services and accommodation for the churchmen working in the nearby Vatican and the pilgrims who flocked to the city’s most holy site every year. 

Today the Borgo is a charming blend of lively bars and restaurants interspersed with fascinating historical sites. We’ll stop to take a look at one of the most interesting of these at the church of Santo Spirito: a so-called ‘baby hatch’ or ‘foundlings’ wheel’. This medieval concept allowed mothers unable to care for newborn infants to leave them anonymously at churches, ensuring the children could be put up for adoption instead of being abandoned. 

 

Stunning Christmas Decorations in St. Peter’s Square

 

Our Christmas tour of Rome concludes in extraordinary St. Peter’s Square - where else? As the most important site in the Catholic world and a pilgrimage destination like no other, it’s little wonder that Christmas is a particularly special time of year at the Vatican. Each year the tree installed at the center of St. Peter’s square, wonderfully framed by Bernini’s colonnade and Michelangelo’s amazing church dome, is donated by a different community from around the world. 

Alongside the tree we’ll get to admire Rome’s largest and most important nativity scene. The tradition of recreating the scene of Christ's birth in a humble Bethlehem barn is a venerable one - the first reported example was realized by none other than St. Francis of Assisi in 1223, and the Vatican crib is always one of the most hotly anticipated parts of Christmas decorations in the Eternal City. 

There’s no better way to end our festive stroll together, where the magic of Rome at Christmas will be sure to fill you with the joy of the most wonderful time of year!