Piazza Navona Christmas market in Rome  is  on the list of best European Christmas Markets.   It is on the ancient site of the Circus of Domitian and has the shape of a stadium because of the games played  there in ancient times.  As the Christmas season nears, the vendors set up their  toys, ornaments and delicious Italian sweets. One of my favorite items were the Christmas figures for the manger scene.  It is very difficult and terribly expensive to get the hand-carved wooden  figures, but I did see them for sale in the shops near the Vatican. The ones on sale at Navona were plastic but the gifted Italian artists worked their magic with plastic and  the expressions and details  of clothing etc. are wonderful and the price is much more reasonable.

The last time I went with my husband  for a semester in Rome, the  students were frantically…