Sunday, December 23
We found a church in the area that was doing a sing-a-long Messiah. In case you’re unfamiliar with this it is a performance of Handel’s oratorio, “The Messiah” where the audience sings the choral parts. The Messiah is often performed during the Christmas season and sing-a-long versions are very popular. We participate in them whenever we get the opportunity. We attended one at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center once but most of the time they’re done in churches; they’re a great way for them to raise money.
This performance was scheduled for 8:30 pm at an Anglican Church near the Arch of Hadrian. We were told to arrive by 7:45 pm because the director wanted to warm up the singers first and go over some of the more difficult parts. We arrived at 7:30 pm and the doors had barely opened. Everyone there spoke British English and we learned that this church was attended primarily by members of the UK expat community. It was a small, neo-Gothic style church with a small two-keyboard organ on one side and seating for about 300. Soon they put out signs as to where the various voices should sit and we took our places. The warm-ups started just after 8:30 pm.
The church was packed to the gills with attendees but only about 25 people planned to sing the choral parts. Piano-vocal scores could be purchased at the door for €10.00 / $11.50 but we had already downloaded it to our iPads. Cost of entry was €5.00 / $5.75 per person whether you were singing or merely attending. For this performance the soloists were young vocalists who had volunteered their services. Most of them looked like they were students or had recently graduated. We were accompanied by the church organ and were directed by a man who was likely the director of the church choir.
The level of competence all around was fairly low but the evening was still a great deal of fun. Everyone there was happy, friendly and talkative. The evening was a great social success and considering that there were probably 400 people there the church raised a good bit of money. This was the ninth year in row that they had staged The Messiah. We heard that for the first couple of years they had gotten members of the opera company to sing the solo parts. We would have liked to have seen those performances.
Believe it or not we forgot to take pictures!
Distance walked: 2.5 miles
Monday, December 24
We decided to head out a see a few sights today. Tomorrow is Christmas day and most things will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Our real goal was simply to buy some groceries to tide us over for the next couple of days but while we were out we planned to see a few things.
We waked through the National Garden and headed towards Kallimarmaro, the stadium that had been used for the first modern Olympics. We intended to walk around the back and get in for free; our guide George had told us about this route that supposedly only locals knew about.
(The National Gardens)
We finally came to the school yard that he mentioned and found that the gates were locked. School was not in session that day so it made sense that their grounds would be off limits. We were disappointed but figured we would come back on another day.
Google maps told us that it would be faster to continue walking around rather than retracing our steps so we continued on. Soon we found a long staircase that seemed like it might be another way to get in. We walked to the top and found a large park that was adjacent to the stadium. There was a fence that prevented entry and we could see no gates. Just as we were about to leave someone inside the park walked past us and exited through some bars that were bent. We asked if you could get into the stadium from there and they said, “Yes”.
Once we got into the park we realized that there were several trails. The one we took led to a clearing high on the hill with views of the area and the stadium. We were high above the stadium. By now Deborah wasn’t feeling too energetic so instead of trying one of the other paths we just left and decided to try again on another day.
This time last year we were in Rome. We had a great time trying various cakes and Panettone. In fact, we must have had six different Panettone alone. We only had three cakes and some Greek Christmas cookies back at the house so after leaving the grocery store we stopped at a new bakery and bought an orange cake. It had just come out of the oven and was still warm.
(Christmas Treats)
Distance walked: 7.6 miles
Tuesday, December 25
Merry Christmas to all. We stayed inside all day. For Christmas Dinner Deborah made pasta with shrimp scampi and for dessert we finally dug into the buche de noel that we bought. It turned out that it wasn’t exactly what we expected. The outside had a thick white chocolate ganache and the inside was chocolate and vanilla mouse separated by a thin layer of moist chocolate cake. It was absolutely delicious.
(Shrimp Scampi for Christmas Dinner)
Distance walked: 0.2 miles