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Rome New Year's Eve: what to do and where to go

By: Wanted in Rome

Date:

16 Dec, 2022

Celebrating New Year in Rome: events, parties and traditions.

Rome will ring in the New Year with a free concert whose line-up includes Elodie, Franco 126, Madame and Sangiovanni.

The Rome Restarts 2023 concert will kick off at 21.30 on 31 December 2022 at the Circus Maximus, with a dj set keeping the party going into the wee hours.

On 1 January 2023, New Year's Day, the city will host a programme of free cultural events including concerts, guided tours, shows, readings and activities for children.

The Capodarte initiative will be held in various areas of Rome in museums, libraries, cinemas and theatres, including the city's opera house.

New Year's Eve traditions in Italy

New Year's Eve parties

Capodanno parties will be held in bars, night clubs and hotels across the city. Some of the best places to dance the night away include clubs such as Lanificio, Micca, ShariVari, Vicious, Rashomon and Room 26. There are also plenty of parties at popular bars such as the Abbey Theatre, Finnegan’s, Scholars Lounge and Drink Kong.

New Year's food

The traditional Italian New Year’s Eve meal consists of cotechino (similar to salami), zampone (stuffed pig’s trotters), and lentils which are meant to bring luck for the coming year, all washed down with a glass or two of prosecco or spumante.

Dining out

If you wish to dine out on New Year's Eve it is best to reserve your table well in advance – and be prepared to pay more than usual; for inspiration see Wanted in Rome's restaurant listings.

Fireworks

The best places to watch fireworks light up the skies over Rome include the Gianicolo, over Trastevere, and Pincio, over Piazza del Popolo.

New Year's Eve traditions

A well-known but almost-extinct Capodanno tradition (in Rome at least) involves people throwing old objects out the window, symbolising their readiness to welcome in the new year.

Happy New Year in Italian

Another Italian superstition holds that wearing red underwear when the clock strikes midnight will bring good luck for the year ahead.

Getting home

Metro services run until 02.30 on New Year's Eve (early hours of 1 Jan), substituted from 03.30 until 08.00 with nightbuses. On New Year's Day, Rome's public transport network resumes at 08.00 and follows the normal festivo timetable.

New Year's Day Parade

Some of America's best-known high school marching bands will stage a free, family-orientated parade in central Rome on 1 January to celebrate New Year's Day.

New Year's Day Parade in Rome

The annual event involves US marching bands joining forces with Italian musical folk groups to perform alongside majorettes, street performers, dancers and historical re-enactors, starting in Piazza del Popolo at 15.30.

Plunge into the Tiber?

One of the city’s most unusual spectacles on New Year’s Day is the Tuffo nel Tevere. At midday daredevil divers thrill the crowds by making the 17-metre plunge off Ponte Cavour into the icy waters of the Tiber below.

Rome New Year's Eve: what to do and where to go