Rome in Advent and at Christmastide is unlike any other city in the world, including itself at other times of the year. Other cities clean up before they spruce up. Rome, not so much. Decorations go over the grime, or sometimes seem to emerge from it. In some quarters, the Christmas lights don’t seem to be hung out, as simply turned on.
The tree in the central square, Piazza Venezia – so called because on it sits the ancient Venetian embassy to the Papal States (from the balcony of which Mussolini liked to give speeches) – is a perennial subject of local polemics, but would never make the list of the top 100 municipal Christmas trees in Europe.
