Monday 5 January 2009

New Year in Rome

New Year in Rome or "La Festa di San Silvestro" is a fabulous way to experience this city. Rome offers wide-ranging restaurants to a variety of religious and cultural activities to celebrate the New Year. In the past, the Romans celebrated New Year by eating traditional food like fish and pasta. Over the years this has changed and now Rome new yearRome has exploded to be an exciting way to see in the New Year including dancing, eating, drinking and party hard with friends and family. Rome is lit up by fireworks with hundreds of people in the streets celebrating with each other.

The main piazza where people head to is Piazza del Popolo where there's fireworks and live music well into the night. On New Year's day, children are entertained in the square by performers and acrobats.

Recently the celebrations are also being held at the piazza in front of the Quirinale off Via Nazionale where you can see concerts playing Classical music followed by fireworks. If you're lucky, you might see the Italian President and other important members of the Italian government attend to this event. The main event the next day is the New Year Parade procession. Thousands of people wait anxiously to receive the Pope's blessings in Rome. The parade passes through the historic Castel Sant' Angelo then down Via della Conciliazione and ends in St. Peter's Square.