(The following post is an excerpt from My Italian Experience, and tells the story of my attending Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter’s Cathedral in the Vatican City on December 24-25, 1990. I spent three straight Christmases away from home during my time in the Navy, all of them in Italy, and my last one there, described below, was also the most memorable. This is about as good a Christmas as you can have while separated from your family.)
George and I attended Christmas Eve mass last night at the Vatican. Since my work schedule had prevented my attending the ceremony the previous two years, I seized the opportunity this time. The weather was perfect for a trip to Rome: raining, chilly, and quite dreary.
During the morning, George’s roommate offered to drive us to Stazione Centrale. We left more than an hour before our 12:10 train was scheduled to depart. Traffic was worse than I had ever seen it. By the time we entered downtown, still several blocks from the train station, we stopped, and waited. George and I became increasingly uneasy. By 11:45, not having moved in some twenty minutes, and still with a few blocks to go, George and I got out and walked the remaining half-mile (in the rain, of course).
We made our way briskly through the usual maze of pedestrians, sidewalk vendors, and mopeds. Along the way, we discovered the problem. At an intersection, three lanes of traffic, each heading its own direction, had converged. It appeared deadlock would prevail for some time. Of course, there were no traffic policemen present.
George and I arrived at the station a minute or two after noon, and had to stand in line for a couple of minutes to get tickets. After purchasing “due biglietti per Roma e ritorno” (two round-trip tickets to Rome) at Lit. 23,600 ($19) apiece, we ran downstairs and made it to binario (track) three just before the espresso from Salerno arrived as scheduled.
We scrambled to find a partially vacant compartment, then seated ourselves. The train followed the subway line through Naples and into Pozzuoli before turning north toward Rome. I had brought my camera and an excess of film along with my usual cache of paraphernalia: umbrella, walkman, tapes. I put on headphones and dozed for a good portion of the journey.
The ride through the mountainous Italian countryside was serene, as usual, the dark clouds adding a touch of mystique. The rain was light but steady. We were taking an espresso, and there were no stops between Naples and Rome. The ride was enjoyable. During our journey, I visited the dining car, three cars from ours, for snacks, returning with cookies and drinks.
The ancient walls just outside the city gave the first indication of our imminent arrival. We rolled through the maze of tracks and pulled into the far left track, number twenty-six, at Roma Termini. It was a little after 2:00. We had arrived a couple of minutes early. The ride had taken two hours. We were in Rome. The weather had not changed. I was wearing my overcoat and a sweater, so the cool dampness did not affect me much.
Our initial endeavor was to visit a music store, one of several shops in the train station. We found nothing of interest, so we moved along.
We then decided to visit the USO, down the street from St. Peter’s Square, to get our tickets for mass. I had reserved them earlier in the week via telephone from Naples. They were free, but we had to get them by closing time, five o’clock.
George and I went down to the subway and purchased tickets (Lit. 700, or $0.60, apiece). We then headed for Line A (the other subway line in Rome being, of course, Line B), and awaited the next train. It soon arrived. Surprisingly, it wasn’t very crowded.
We traveled six stops westward to the end of the line. Boarding at Termini, we passed Repubblica, Barberini, Spagna, Flaminio, and Lepanto. We arrived at Ottaviano shortly, and made the half-mile walk south to St. Peter’s Square, then east to the USO. After obtaining the tickets, George attempted to telephone home, but the phone at the USO was out of order.
By now, we were thinking about food. We walked back to St. Peter’s Square, stopping briefly to admire the nativity scene and take pictures of each other with the cathedral as a backdrop, then walked back to the subway station.
We traveled two stops east to Flaminio. Walking through the underground tunnel, the street vendors and musicians had gathered en masse, open guitar cases catching a few coins. We ascended to the street near Piazza del Popolo. It was my idea to stop here for food. We walked around for perhaps fifteen minutes in search of a café where we could get a snack. By now it was four o’clock.
George and I found a nice, albeit small café in an underpass connecting Piazza del Popolo and a street leading to Villa Borghese. The neighborhood seemed familiar. I realized I had been here the year before, on August 2, when I had visited Villa Borghese.
Meanwhile, we sat down and enjoyed two small calzoni (folded pizzas) apiece and a coke. It was just something to hold us until dinner. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
Most restaurants in Italy don’t open until seven or seven-thirty in the evening, so we had to eat something. After we finished, we walked into Piazza del Popolo, one of the most beautiful piazzas in all of Rome, with its Egyptian obelisk standing in the center. By now it was almost dark. A handful of people standing atop the Pincine Hill, accessible from the piazza, were looking across the piazza and the nightlit city. It must have been an awesome view with dusk now settling over Rome.
George suggested we return to the Vatican. We rode the subway, then began the casual walk toward St. Peter’s Square. In the meantime, we decided to stop in a bar for cappuccino and relax for a few minutes. We drank our cappuccino and even enjoyed gelato to go. We departed abruptly after the bartender wouldn’t allow us to sit. (Italians are very peculiar about this.)
We made our way back to St. Peter’s Square to once again admire the nativity scene, now lit, and the huge Christmas tree beside it. It was adorned with hundreds of lights. We both made a couple of photographs and departed.
As the time approached six o’clock, I made a stop at a pay telephone as George waited nearby. He had made a brief call earlier while in the Flaminio subway station just after we had eaten and were returning to the Vatican.
By now the rain had become intermittent. We craved a meal soon. George suggested L’Etrusco, an osteria near St. Peter’s, which he had frequented before. I had no reason to object. We walked around the neighborhood talking, window shopping, and trying to whittle away the time until seven. We circumnavigated the same city block several times, passing L’Etrusco, hungrily, each trip.
Thinking ahead, we were also trying to determine which buses, if any, would be able to take us to either Stazione Ostiense or Stazione Tiburtina, where trains would be leaving during the early morning for Naples. Stazione Termini would close at midnight. We had gotten some information at the USO, but an inquiry posed at a nearby information booth proved this invalid. We decided we would be forced to take a taxi to one of the stations. There would be no buses in the area after midnight.
Around a quarter before seven George and I decided to enter L’Etrusco to see if it was open. To our amazement, it was. It had opened early because of the midnight mass. We sat at a table near the door.
The dining area was characteristically small, perhaps a dozen or so tables. We were given menus, and soon ordered caprese for antipasto. For a first course, I enjoyed fettucini. We both ordered the white house wine.
As our food was being prepared, the restaurant began to fill. A half-hour after our arrival as the first guests, the dining room was full. We were joined by a mixture of Germans, Italians, Brits, and Americans.
George and I enjoyed a slow meal, even ordering a second liter of wine to help us pass the time. We also ordered third courses, then desserts. As the evening progressed, the osteria grew increasingly boisterous. Finally, a young man carrying a guitar entered from the street to exchange entertainment for coins. He must have played some popular Italian songs, for around half the patrons began singing along. We shook our heads in disbelief.
Shortly after nine o’clock, George and I decided to leave. We asked for the bill. It was surprisingly small, Lit. 43,500 ($35). We then made the short walk to St. Peter’s Square. There we waited in a long line to enter the cathedral. We met some Canadians who stood in front of us.
Following an hour wait, the line began to move. We walked up the steps of the cathedral where a group of Carabinieri were directing guests to the proper entrance. The tickets were color-coded as per language. George and I were directed to the north side of the cathedral where we entered through Porta Rezzonico. We were seated with other English-speaking folks.
Having entered the cathedral at ten-thirty, we had some ninety minutes before the commencement of the mass. An organist played one of the pipe organs. The sound was phenomenal. We passed a little time by taking a few photographs and skimming the programs given us as we had entered. Only a small portion was inscribed in English.
As midnight approached, the cathedral filled to capacity, some twenty thousand. The suspense was agonizing. A choir began singing a few minutes before midnight, and finally, at twelve, the lights brightened and the crowd stood as the papal court entered the enormous sanctuary. In fact, the court walked down the aisle to my immediate left. The ceremony had begun.
The mass was conducted in a multitude of languages, George and I understanding only a fraction. Unfortunately, we were not afforded the best of seats. In fact, we were several rows from the pope, some twenty-five meters away. Invariably, each time the pontiff turned toward our side, several people in front of us stood with their cameras.
The ceremony was scheduled to end at two o’clock. George and I grew increasingly tired and oblivious to the mass. We decided to leave a little early, walking out at a quarter past one.
Our first endeavor was to find a taxi. We walked out of St. Peter’s Square, turning north. With a mighty stroke of luck, a vacant white taxi turned south onto the street facing us. We stopped him and asked how much he would charge to take us to Ostiense. “Trenta mila,” he replied after conferring with the gentleman sitting beside him. That was reasonable. I then asked his price for driving us to Tiburtina. “Quaranta mila,” he replied. We therefore opted for the ride to Tiburtina. It was a little farther, and would therefore cost a little more, but the next train for Naples would depart there at two-thirty, vice three-thirty from Ostiense. We did not wish to wait in the cold an additional hour to save Lit. 10,000 ($8).
The taxi cruised the empty streets of Rome for the twenty-minute ride to Tiburtina. We arrived at two o’clock, paid the Lit. 40,000 ($32), and entered the station. It was deserted, less a handful of homeless. We checked the schedule for the track our train would use, then sauntered over to track two to await our train.
The train we would board had left from Milan earlier in the evening. It was headed for Palermo in Sicily. George and I reasoned it would be rather full. When it arrived, just after two-thirty, we were proven correct. We searched most of the train, composed mostly of sleeper cars, until finally discovering a compartment near the front with two empty seats.
This train was also an espresso, and it, too, made no stops between Rome and Naples. I listened to my walkman for most of the journey, nodding off occasionally. George slept most of the way. The train ride passed rather quickly as we pulled into Napoli Centrale at five o’clock Christmas morning. A short taxi ride back to Capodichino marked the end of our trip.
I rose at ten o’clock that morning so George and I could go to some friends’ home for the afternoon. We took the bus from Capodichino to Agnano, and were driven from there by car.
