Jubilee
Year Events Are Already Under Way: The Jubilee
year (Giubileo, in Italian) doesn't officially start until the Pope opens
the "Holy Door" at St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Eve, but things are
already happening in Rome, in the rest of Italy, and elsewhere, in preparation
for the Jubilee (Vatican events started in 1997!). To find out what's happening
in Rome, go to GiubileoRoma's monthly Internet event calendar at http://www.giubileoroma.com/eventi/eventi.htm.
The site only covers whatever is happening during the current month and
it is in (easily decipherable) Italian, but it has day-to-day events other
Jubilee lists do not appear to have. The RAI (Italian Radio and Television)
Jubilee Agenda site is in English and projects all he way out to January
2001 and lists information for events of which RAI is aware. You can get
a full list, or search by a span of dates, or search by subject or key
words. The full list is huge and it takes several minutes for the RAI computer
to assemble it and send it back to you. As an added bonus, the RAI databases
include important cultural and artistic events in Rome -- exhibitions in
the major museums and musical, theater, and opera performances -- and major
religious manifestations in other parts of the world, especially in Israel
and the Holy Land. The RAI Jubilee Agenda Internet site can be found at
http://www.giubileo.rai.it/eng/agenda/all/index.htm.
Neither site lists addresses or phone numbers for the locations of the
events, but any good tour book can give you those. The important thing
is to know what's happening so you can look up the appropriate site in
your tour guide.