Christmas was our last full day in Rome. We knew that there would be very few business open (if any). We caught one of the hotel buses into the middle of town and set out with no particular plan in mind.
Since there were no businesses or museum open, we wandered into any church that we passed. We started in Piazza del Popolo. I was looking for a particular Bernini statue that was supposedly in a church off of Piazza del Popolo, but I never found it. The amount of things that I have left undone in Rome is staggering. I think my list of things to do in Rome got bigger after spending 4 days there.
Even though we didn't find the Bernini statue, it was beautiful to wander in all of the churches on the piazza. There were masses happening every hour on the hour. I felt a little odd about going in as an obvious tourist during mass. It didn't bother David.
We wandered down Via del Corso checking out churches as we went. In each church, parents were taking their children to look at the nativity scenes set up. For a city as large and as old as Rome, on Christmas it felt like a little Italian village. Families were shaking hands with people standing next to them at mass. I don't remember all the churches we visited, but David and I continued to remark that Rome's C-List churches would have been A-List in any other country.
We stopped at "Piazza del Campidoglio":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Hill#Michelangelo to admire the entrance to the forum and ponder just how old those arches must be. We stopped to get our bearings, and I took some pictures.
Eventually, it started raining and we decided to head back to the hotel to relax.
We had reservations at a restaurant in the Jewish Ghetto called "Vecchia Roma" – based on a recommendation from a friend. The food was as excellent as expected. David and I had been gorging ourselves on artichokes the past couple of days and that meal was no exception.
However, the stand-out for me was the dessert. I decided to order fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with ricotta. It was amazing. The ricotta filling had a tiny bit of candied orange and spice. The flavor of the squash blossoms was very pronounced. I rank it as one of the most memorable desserts I'll ever have.
After dinner, David and I went back to the hotel to pack for the trip home. Little did we know, it was going to be a long time before we made it to NYC.
