Ravenna Day 9 and 10
Ravenna is a small town.
There isn’t a whole lot there.
But from my research I knew there were beautiful old mosaics there. This post is one of the hardest to pick
pictures for, there just are so many to choose from.
We attempted to see Ravenna on our 2012 trips, but didn’t
time or research it right. We were there
between 1 and 3 PM, and the town shuts down for lunch. I was confused by which church had the
mosaics, and we went to the wrong one. I
did not have a Binder on that trip, big mistake.
Side note: The Blog Fodder was complaining to his sister about the HUGE binder I drug around Italy and she told him to shut it, that is what an organized person does. Camping friends, you can just hear that conversation, can’t you?
And as we had a bit of a drive ahead of us to our Glamping
spot, we left, but that is a different story
We both felt that it was a failure, and we needed to do
Ravenna again, but right this time.
We pulled into town and found a parking lot fairly
quickly. After consulting our map, we
discovered our hotel was right across the street, so went to check in. They directed us to their parking lot and
checked us in. It was a small B&B
right on the edge of the historical district.
It has been lovingly restored by the young owner, Michael and was yet
another hotel hit on our trip.
Parking spot, ours is the grey on in the middle.
Since it was mid afternoon, we had time to visit some of the
town. There is a combo ticket that got
us into several of the town top spots.
We started with the Church of St Vitale.
The church is tall and the mosaics were exquisite. It is amazing how little pieces of glass can
be put together to make such lovely pictures.
This church was built in the 6th century, at the time that
the Eastern ideas of Jesus were changing to the Western ideas of Jesus. So He shows up in both forms in the mosaics.
Eastern (no beard)
Western (more like we are used to seeing)
Emperor Justinian is featured prominently along with his
wife (the dancer who became his concubine then his wife, shows how long that sort of thing has been going on!)
Behind the Church, there is The Mausoleum of Galla
Placidia. It was built in the 5th
century and is a tiny jewel box.
Pictures were allowed, but no flashes.
They told us we were limited to 15 minutes, but no one seemed to be
timing us.
It was getting late in the afternoon at this point, but we
decided we had time to go to one more sight on our combo ticket and went to Sant’Apollinare
Nuovo.
Once again with the leaning tower!
Again, lovely mosaics. A lot of the mosaics were high up and the
B.F. mentioned how nice it was to have a zoom lens for his camera.
Oh really?
I got him that lens for Christmas and he threw a holy hissy
fit over it. It cost too much and it
wasn’t what he would have bought. I gave
him my full permission to return it, exchange it, exchange ALL his camera stuff
for the newest, biggest, brightest…and HE decided to KEEP the one I bought.
Good to know it came in handy!
"If you like it put a ring on it"
This wasn't the best pictures, but I liked the Three Wise Guys in their Yoga Pants
See, you can almost see the individual stones in this
picture that was a good 20 feet from the ground!
We wandered through town back to the B&B to freshen up
for dinner. The choir at the Franciscan
church was practicing, and that added a nice note to our stroll. Ravenna is close to the coast and is a
beautiful, clean and FLAT town. We’ll
appreciate that more later when we hit the Hill Towns.
We went out to dinner at a newer place close by that had a
nice wine list and good food.
After a restful night’s sleep, we got up to hit the rest of
the sights on our ticket, and to do a little shopping.
We went to the Neoniano Baptistery that was small, but
again…mosaics.
The Museo Arcivescovile was next on our list.
It was not large but had some impressive
pieces in its collection,
like a throne made of ivory
and a lovely little
chapel.
They also had some vestments
that were worn by cardinals from the area.
The jewels got my attention.
On our last trip, we had visited the Franciscan church, but
stopped by for another look. The church
is very plain, as most Franciscan churches are, other than the big one in
Assisi.
But under the altar were some
old Roman…you got it….mosaics. The water
table had risen over the years, and the mosaics are now a gold fish pond.
See the fishies and their shadow?
Before we left the US, we considered staying an extra day in
Ravenna to go to the beach, but heck, we have beaches at home but not so many
interesting old things to see.
Dante’s tomb is also in Ravenna, but we saw that last
time. He has a tomb in Florence also. And
if you are wondering who is buried in Dante’s tombs…that would be nobody. Florence kicked Dante out, Ravenna took him
in and buried him when he died. Florence
changed its mind and has spent the next 700 years trying to get him back. The good folks of Ravenna hid the body and
then hid him again during WWI. I think
having two tombs that you are not using is just a little excessive!
At this point, we have seen all the bright points of
Ravenna, and decided to move on to Assisi.
If I only knew what was in store for us, I might have stayed
a little longer in Ravenna!
No comments:
Post a Comment