New Year's Eve in Italy in the time of Covid - Even in lockdown, some traditions remain

It will be New Year's dinner for 2
in 2020.

RST welcomes guest writer Mary Jane Cryan, who, originally from the US (she even went to college at D’Youville in Buffalo), has lived in Italy for more than 50 years. Mary Jane is THE expert on all things Etruria, the fascinating area just north of Rome that includes the lively city of Viterbo and of Vetralla, where she lives. See her terrific website here: http://www.elegantetruria.com/. Besides contributing to virtually every important guidebook to Italy and the region, lecturing on cruise ships, and speaking widely, Mary Jane is a prolific writer and publisher. Her own books in the past few years have focused on Etruria; her bibliography is on her website.

We have featured her fine work in two prior posts: one on Etruria, here: https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2014/05/etruria-perfect-day-trip-from-rome-with.html

and another on a Borromini monastery (turned luxury hotel) in Rome here: https://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-borromini-monastery-in-trastevere.html

Mary Jane brings her particular insight to this very unusual “Vigilia di Capodanno” – New Year’s Eve – and New Year's Day.:

2020 will be remembered for decades to come as the year to forget. The latest, rather strict, rules for the holiday weeks here in Italy are being enforced from December 21, 2020 to January 6, 2021.

The table set for a festive crowd in a prior year
and hopefully a year to come.

 This means travel between   individual regions and autonomous provinces is prohibited, except to return to one's primary legal residence. For this entire period, travel to second homes in other regions is prohibited, making Italians even more creative since this is the time when families generally gather together.

There was a rush on trains to get to family homes before the shut down. On 25 and 26 December and New Year’s, January 1^st, leaving one's municipality was and is totally prohibited, except for work, health, or other urgent reasons.

Italians are coping with the restrictions by using their creativity: restaurants offer take-away menus which include bottles of spumante with orders. Country house accommodations (agriturismi) and hotels are serving dinner to guests in their own rooms or apartments rather than in the main dining rooms.   

Until this year, New Year’s was celebrated by young people gathering in major piazzas throughout the peninsula, mega concerts were held in Rome, and there was all night dancing in night clubs. I remember fondly one New Year’s evening spent at a concert in Bologna’s magnificent Opera House which ended with a rousing “Radetzky’s March” and bottles of spumante being shared with members of the audience and the orchestra.

What has been - and what could be - a rousing opera at a full opera house.

And a concert in a crowded
church.

Those who stay home play bingo and other board games while waiting for the countdown to the New Year. Multi-course dinners, spumante and panettone are followed with the traditional dish of lentils, for good luck, at midnight. This year the number of guests around the dining table is drastically reduced due to restrictions on travel between towns and regions.

Surely traditions like fireworks, wearing red underwear and throwing old things out for the New Year’s will still happen throughout Italy, and, even though separated by rules and distances, families will be united in spirit and by modern technology to welcome in 2021.

 

                                                                        Mary Jane Cryan

 

Sausages by the fireplace - for 2.

The Borromini Monastery in Trastevere - hidden treasure or just for the wealthy?

We were intrigued to read recently - on Mary Jane Cryan's 50 Years In Italy blog - about Cryan's students' experiences living in what most Romans refer to as the Borromini monastery in Trastevere.  We've written about her books on Etruria, and it's fun to read about her impressions of Rome.

We used to slip into the monastery to show the distinctive building to visitors.  But then it was taken over by a luxury hotel operator, and now is simply that - a luxury hotel.  You can peek your head inside, but you can't go as far in, or see as much, as in the "good old days."  We knew guests could stay in the monastery before it became a hotel, but we hadn't realized it was used for students staying for longer terms. Cryan's - and her students' - experiences, photos, and documents show us what used to be there - a real treat.

Cryan begins with the ad for what the monastery is now - the deluxe hotel, and the rest of this post is from her blog posting which we print here with her permission:

 Donna Camilla Savelli Hotel    Rome City Centre, Trastevere, Rome

Designed by Baroque architect Borromini, the Donna Camilla Savelli is a former monastery in Rome's popular Trastevere area. It offers a garden, elegant and sober rooms, and free Wi-Fi in the lobby.

This is the website description of  a 4 star hotel located at the foot of  the Janiculum hill in Rome’s Trastevere area . 

For many lucky American students studying in Rome during the 1980s   it was  home  during their semester  study  abroad program.  

Borromini designed the facade of the monastery 

The female students were “cloistered” on the first floor while the men were relegated to the second floor corridor. There were communal bathrooms back then and the  ancient heating system was seldom  lukewarm. To survive the chill, the students bundled up with thick sweaters or  sat in the sunshine of the courtyard garden where roses bloomed  even in December.

The  atmosphere at the convent was often similar to  a Fellini film set : Gina, the  grumpy portinaia,  elderly nuns gliding  silently along white and black marble hallways,  meals served in the frescoed  refectory, cavernous kitchens hung with bright copper pots  and  sitting rooms furnished  with antiques including  Pope Pius IX’s  armchair.

copper pots in the  convent kitchen 

marble fountain
near the refectory 

The sisters of the religious order were grateful for the money which arrived from America and used it to  repair  parts of the roof. 

the convent today - an expensive  4 star hotel

Here are some  of the original  letters with the price list  for bed and breakfast....a far cry from what today's clients pay to stay in the luxurious modern rooms of the former monastery. 

   

How times have changed!  Notice that IVA tax  was only 9 or 10%. 

What could you buy for the equivalent of   26 or 28,000 lire today? (approximately  14-16 euro) 

The convent  was founded  by Donna Camilla  Savelli (related to the Ruspoli-Marescottifamily)  and  has had an interesting history culminating in its new use as a luxury hotel. 

During World War II many  Roman Jewish families found refuge here and the sisters distributed  bread  and food to the local population from the monastery kitchens.   

Etruria: the perfect day-trip from Rome, with the perfect guidance

At the 16th-century "monster park" - Bomarzo, near Viterbo, in Etruria

We now have a ready answer to "What's a good day trip from Rome?" - and it's Etruria... so let us explain what that is and why we have picked it.

The day trip question is one we're often asked, and we often have multiple answers, depending... on whether one likes beaches or mountains, small towns or urban museums, a day without tourists or the hottest spot in a large town, etc.

The covers to Mary Jane Cryan's latest book on Etruria in Northern Lazio, for day trips from Rome

Our easy answer now for those who want an authentic Italian experience and no or minimal tourists:  Mary Jane Cryan's Etruria.  Etruria is the area north of Rome once inhabited by Etruscans, and others before them.  Cryan draws a line between the towns of Vetralla, Tarquinia and Tuscania to form what she calls the Etruscan Triangle - a stunning area.  She has done us all a huge favor by covering the area in the kind of detail and enchanting stories one rarely finds in travel guides - no doubt because she has lived in the area for more than 20 years, and in Italy more than 50.

One way to enjoy Tuscania  (and, it's in Lazio, not Tuscany) -
from the patio of a hotel on the "new" side of town, looking over to the old.

Lago (Lake) Bracciano and the eel-dominated (in a good way)
town of Anguillara Sabazia

Her most recent book, hot off the press, is Etruria: Storie e Segreti (Etruria - Stories [Histories] and Secrets), as of now, only in Italian.  For those of you who don't want to slug it out in Italian, she has several other guidebooks.  I hesitate to call them guidebooks, because they are so much more than that.  But guide you they will, through Etruria, and they will lead you to much more than what most people go for - the Etruscan sites.  Most accessible, for those who are looking for a day or two in the region, is Cryan's, Etruria: Travel, History and Itineraries in Central Italy.  You will find wonderful itinerary chapters, such as "Mysterious Sites of Northern Lazio," or "Connoisseur's Guide to Viterbo," as well as personal stories, such as "An Old Palazzo in Etruria - the sequel." 

Her other books about Northern Lazio are intriguing as well: Travels to Tuscany and Northern Lazio, Vetralla - the English Connection, and Affreschi - Exploring Etruria. All are based on her own, in-depth travels and original scholarship.  At least one of these books is a "must have" if you are traveling in this area - and you should travel in it, imo.

Mary Jane Cryan's info can lead you to Italian spas where
you will find no tourists.  She "takes the spa" at least weekly,
she says.  So she oughtta know!

Check out Cryan's in-depth Web site, www.elegantetruria.com for ordering the books if you're not in Rome.  In Rome they are available at the few remaining English language bookstores, including Anglo-American, on via delle Vite, and Almost Corner, in Trastevere.  Or most Feltrinelli's.  

Dianne