La Freccia’s december issue opens the doors to Christmas magic

Rome, 4 December 2023

The festive season lights up and La Freccia’s December issue opens its doors to the magic of Christmas. Featured on the cover we find Elisa, the singer-songwriter from Friuli, who has released the Intimate – Recordings at Abbey Road Studios album which, among the unreleased tracks, contains the song Buon Natale anche a te, 'a small photograph of an honest Christmas', and is preparing for the An intimate Christmas concert that will light up the Forum di Assago on 15 and 16 December.

Many original Italian Christmas traditions are illustrated in this issue - from fire rituals to characteristic nativity scenes and timeless legends in a journey from North to South, between large cities and small villages with a jump to Greccio, a town in the province of Rieti where, 800 years ago, St Francis staged the world's first Nativity play. A special anniversary that will also be celebrated on TV live on 25 December.

And then glaciers, Alpine lakes and an arena nestling in the mountains to get to know the Antholz Valley in South Tyrol, which will host the biathlon world cup and the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

The festive spirit can also be breathed in through interviews with pop star Alexia, who is coming out with a new edition of the album My Xmas, Maria Chiara Giannetta, star of the film Santocielo by Ficarra and Picone, and skier Alex Vinatzer who will be competing in the Ski World Cup in Madonna di Campiglio. There is also The Pozzolis Family, among the performers in the musical Matilda at the Teatro Sistina in Rome for which Frecciarossa is the official flag-bearer.

For the festive season, La Freccia offers an overview of exhibitions to visit around Italy. In Rome, one tracing the life, work and works of J. R. R. Tolkien, the writer who created the cult world of The Lord of the Rings. Over 170 works by the Czech master Alphonse Mucha tell the story of art nouveau in Florence, including advertising posters, drawings and theatre playbills. In Parma, one dedicated to Edgar Degas, the most realistic of the Impressionists, is not to be missed, including meticulously executed drawings, paintings and sculptures.

Finally, Christmas also means good practices and resolutions such as the six projects selected by Associazione Civita to enhance the territories of Calabria and Sicily financed through crowdfunding and the support of Gruppo FS Italiane.

You’ll find all this and more in the December issue of La Freccia, which you can browse and read through in digital format on FSNews, or in hard copy, which you can pick up and take with you on Trenitalia's Frecce, in the FRECCIALounges and FRECCIAClubs. The contents of FS Italiane's monthly magazine can also be read on the FSNews Telegram channel as well as on the “X” profiles @fsnews_it and @LaFreccia_Mag.