Europe, part 3: Christmas in Italy — Rome, Florence, Venice

aldrinjenson@gmail.com (Aldrin Jenson) — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 02:20:00 -0400

Trip: Rome → Florence → Venice · December 24–30, 2025 · final leg of a three-country European trip

After Berlin and Barcelona, Italy was the leg I’d been saving up for — a week over Christmas with Dan, moving Rome → Florence → Venice by train. It ended up being the best part of the entire trip, and the part I’d most readily repeat.

Rome (Dec 24–27)

Christmas morning at St. Peter’s Square — the Pope celebrated the Mass.

Christmas morning at St. Peter’s

We were in St. Peter’s Square for Christmas morning Mass, with the Pope himself celebrating — and we’d ended up in a good spot, close to where the papal carriage passed. I’m Catholic, and I don’t really have language for what it’s like to spend Christmas at the centre of the church you grew up in, an ocean away from where you grew up. It’s the single most memorable Christmas I’ve had.

We also did St. Peter’s Basilica properly — including climbing the dome, which I’d rank as one of the best things in Rome: you come out overlooking the whole of Vatican City. Highly recommended, worth every one of the several hundred stairs. The Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel came with fast-track entry (worth paying for — the regular line is measured in hours). Room after room of Michelangelo and Botticelli, ending under that ceiling. No photos allowed in the chapel, which honestly makes people actually look up.

Two thousand years, still standing

What impressed me most about Rome wasn’t any single sight — it was the age of things that are still just… there. The Colosseum has stood since around 80 AD. The Pantheon is over 2,000 years old, with marble brought from Egypt, and you can walk in for free and see Raphael’s tomb (which delighted the Dan Brown reader in me — Angels and Demons fans will understand). Every carving is done to a level of detail that made me reflect on focus itself: the people who made these had an intensity of attention that we, with our phones, mostly don’t.

The Pantheon — over 2,000 years old and still in use. (The Colosseum only made it into selfies.)

One evening at the Colosseum I did something that became my favourite travel hack of the trip: I stood in front of it and used ChatGPT as a live tour guide, going back and forth for a couple of hours — Roman history, gladiator psychology, why civilisations collapse, why the marble skin was stripped off the stone skeleton. A knowledgeable guide in your pocket, for free, at night, at your own pace. I can’t recommend this enough at historical sites.

The rest of Rome: the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain (we made our wishes — but beware the currency exchanges nearby, where $100 bought a scandalous 57 euros), and a walking tour with a guide named Virgilio, who was our favourite person of the whole week. A guide named Virgil, guiding people through Rome — the jokes write themselves.

Florence (Dec 27–28)

Florence got barely a day and a half and deserved a week. It felt more alive than Rome somehow — more families, more children, more of a lived-in city wrapped around Renaissance bones.

David. The real one, at the Accademia. Photos do not prepare you — it’s the smoothness that gets you, marble that reads as skin. The same gallery has Michelangelo’s Prisoners: unfinished figures half-emerged from their marble blocks, which show you exactly how a statue is “freed” from the stone. Seeing the unfinished ones next to the finished David is the best art lesson I’ve ever gotten in ten minutes.

David at the Accademia. It’s the smoothness that gets you — marble that reads as skin.

The Vasari Corridor. I’d read about this secret elevated passage of the Medici — running from Palazzo Vecchio over the Ponte Vecchio — in Dan Brown’s novels, and walking up to it in real life was a proper full-circle moment.
The Duomo — really beautiful, though we couldn’t get inside on the Sunday. A night walk to Piazzale Michelangelo for the panorama over the city was the right call instead; Florence at night from that terrace is the postcard.
The T-bone steak. Bistecca alla fiorentina is sold by the kilogram, and we ordered a full kilo (85 euros) on confident advice. We could not finish it. Order less than you think.

Left for next time: the interactive Leonardo da Vinci museum. Florence is firmly on the return list.

Venice (Dec 28–30)

The arrival alone is worth it: the train crosses the lagoon and you step out of the station directly onto a canal. No cars, no roads — your bus is a boat. We took the Vaporetto (the public water bus) four stops to the hotel and I never stopped finding it charming, even after we missed our stop once because the thing moves faster than you expect.

Venice — no cars, no roads. Your bus is a boat.

Doge’s Palace was the intellectual highlight. Venice was once a merchant-republic superpower — the palace is basically the machinery of that power preserved in marble. And then the sobering coda: the city’s population has fallen something like 95%, with fewer than 5,000 actual residents left in the historic centre. You’re walking through a working museum whose city has mostly moved out. Look for the Squero di San Trovaso — one of the last working gondola repair yards — for a glimpse of the Venice that still functions.

One evening we went to a Vivaldi concert in a Venetian church — Vivaldi, in Venice, in a candlelit church, is exactly as good as it sounds. We also climbed the campanile on a foggy day, from which you can see, precisely, nothing. Timing is everything.

Verdict

Italy was the clear winner of the three countries — I’d rank Florence and Venice above everywhere else on the trip, and I’ll definitely be back (Milan, Bologna, and a Pompeii day trip are already on the list, on good advice from a friend who’s been to Rome six times). Winter turned out to be a great time for it: thinner crowds, mild days, and Christmas in Rome as the anchor.

The trip home had one last gift: a flight in a two-seat row — the best economy configuration that exists — and landing in New York on the 31st, just in time to close out the year.

Practical notes

Book Vatican fast-track entry. The standard line is hours long even in December.
Climb St. Peter’s dome — best view-to-effort ratio in Rome.
Use trains between cities. Italo/Trenitalia between Rome, Florence, and Venice is fast, cheap, and scenic. In Venice, buy Vaporetto passes.
Try ChatGPT as a tour guide standing in front of the monuments. Genuinely transformative for history-heavy sites.
Avoid the currency exchanges near tourist sites — the Trevi-area rates are a scam. Just use a card or an ATM.
Fiorentina steak is priced per kg. A kilo is a lot. Trust me.
Winter is a good season for Italy — fewer tourists, and Christmas in Rome is special if that means something to you.

italy on Aldrin Jenson