New Year’s Eve in Rome

In the interest of providing more cultural information about Rome to our friends and family, I wanted to give you a view of our New Year’s Eve on the Piazza del Popolo (square of the people) last night. After a very nice family dinner of two roasted chickens, some lovely asparagus and saffron risotto, we headed out to the catch the Metro at about 10:30 PM. We arrived on the square just a few minutes later and wondered what the fuss was about. We had expected lights, music and a whole program. About 5,000 people were standing around holding various alcoholic beverages and bags of their own fireworks! Sounds like a safe combination. Some people were running around and lighting some of the fireworks out of their bags, but other than, it looked like the prospects of enjoyment were pretty slim while waiting for midnight. By the way, nobody counted down anyway. We just all watched our cell phones .
By the time the hour had passed some 15,000 people were amassed in the square. The number of firecrackers ended up being impressive. I don’t know what they were, but some of them had to be partial sticks of dynamite, way more powerful than the M-80s and M-160s we knew as kids. Several thousand people stood in the middle of the square and the rest were gathered around the outer edge. Between the two areas a no-man’s-land developed into which firecrackers and empty bottles were tossed. Brave folk seemed to enjoy “running the gauntlet” between the two “safe” areas. The kids climbed up onto a wall and watched and photographed the goings-on for most of the time.
At midnight the official half-hour fireworks display began. Very nice!