April 25: Ravenna

Previous day: April 24: Parma, Modena, or Ravenna

Still staying at Il Cortile del Nespolo. Had another lovely breakfast with Barbaram and chatted at great length about our respective ancestries. Too much length, actually, so we had to dash to get out the door in time to catch our train.

Today we headed to Ravenna, a town with a long history (not unlike most towns in Italy), including a stint as the capital of the Western Roman Empire. Our main reason for going, though, is art: it’s a UNESCO world heritage site because of its mosaics, which date back as far as the 8th century and are reputed to be spectacular. We took a local train, as none of the high-speed trains were going our way at a convenient time, so the trip was about 1.5 hours.

Near-disaster was averted by a stroke of luck. Once at the station, we started on the wrong foot by going to the first Trenitalia ticket machine we saw, not noticing that it was in front of the Italo train station. (Italo is a rival private line.) When we couldn’t find a train to Ravenna, it was clear something was wrong, despite the lack of any visible difference from the Trenitalia machines across the station, in front of the Trenitalia office. Once we had the right Trenitalia machine, we had no trouble purchasing tickets for Ravenna.

Once we had our tickets, we looked up our train on the departures board, found it on track 6 (which was right next to us), and got on the waiting train. Unfortunately, we hadn’t noticed that there were westbound and eastbound platforms, both with the same track numbers. So despite being on the right track number, we were on the wrong train. We wouldn’t have known this if we hadn’t overheard a fellow passenger asking the conductor to confirm that this was the right train for Ravenna. No, as it happened, it was not. Our train was on the other side of the station, on the mirror universe track 6. One advantage of being early is that you have time to respond to such near-disasters if you detect them in time. We ran out to the right track 6, in plenty of time to catch our train. No idea where we’d have ended up had we not gotten off the first train, but it would not have been Ravenna. Might be nice if the station managers revised the track numbering to prevent such problems.

Ravenna seems a pleasant enough town, though I didn’t notice anything special to distinguish it from Bologna at a pedestrian level. Well, no colonnades, but other than that, it felt comfortable and familiar and easy to navigate. We walked a few blocks to the tourist information center, grabbed a map, and made a list of the sites we hoped to see before running out of steam. The tourism people offer a combination pass good for five of the key sites (Basilica Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, the Museo Arcivescovile, Battistero Neoniano, Basilica of San Vitali, and Mausoleum of Galla Placidia), so we picked that up at our first site and planned to see them all. We succeeded.

Ravenna street

Before leaving the Piazza San Francesco, we stopped at the eponymous church, which we discovered (via Atlas Obscura) had a submerged crypt. Like all Franciscan churches, this one was very simple—almost painfully so compared to the blinged out churches of the other denominations. The crypt was nearly the only splash of color, and it was quite lovely: luminous, with a tile mosais under a couple feet of water, and some fish swimming around.

The mosaics are very much worth the trip. The artwork is outstanding, and the colors are brilliant and diverse. And the level of detail is incredible as a result of using a range of tile sizes, ranging from about the size of your little fingernail down to lentil size. There are many nice little flourishes; for example, rather than taking the easy way out and using only a single color to fill in the background behind the figures, there’s usually shading to indicate shadow and suggest three dimensions, and other details such as thin leaves and flowers to fill parts of the empty space. There’s a lot of gold in the tiles, but rather than turning the images all “bling”, it actually enhances them. I wouldn’t call it “restrained”, but it’s all quite lovely.

Ceiling mosaic

Jeremiah

Sites of historical interest always have a plaque out front, in English and Italian, that describes the highlights. They provide helpful information and orientation, but you really need a degree in Christian iconography to get full benefit from any of the religious sites by understanding what you see. Some of the images are simple and clear, with clear theological meaning. For example, the mosaic of Abraham being stopped by an angel before sacrificing Isaac and the mosaic of Moses were pretty clear. But each apostle has his own animal emblem, which requires a knowledge of these relationships to understand who is being represented by a given animal. And the choice of Greek letters that appear on the robes of the various saints are obscure, though clearly not random.

We had lunch at a nice locavore/slow food restaurant, “Natural Burger”, but rather than having a burger (which sounded delish but would have been not particularly Italian), we instead chose to sample a local specialty, the “piadina”. This is a crispy flatbread about as thick as pita, which can be covered in various toppings. We shared two of them: one had prosciutto, nearly liquid squacquerone cheese, and arugala, and the other with salted roasted veggies (zucchini, eggplant, bell pepper), again topped with arugala. A light and tasty meal, if nothing to write home about. (But I am anyway!)

Fabio called midway through the day to confirm our arrangements for tomorrow. We confirmed the train we were planning to take, and will probably pick up the tickets when we return to Bologna station.
After seeing the last of the sites, we ended our day lying in a nice patch of shade in a park. Lots of kids playing, people sunbathing, and the wind blowing gently through the trees. Great place to take off our shoes and let our feet breathe and rest after hours of walking on hard pavement in hot weather. (No pigeons fell from the sky downwind of us after de-shoeing.) A young brother (about 4 years old) and sister (about 2) were playing in front of us, and were particularly entertaining; she was clearly the family jock, as she was controlling a ball like a soccer pro, with great attention to every move and surprising deterity; her brother had considerably less coordination, particularly since he was more interested in showing off and mooning for his audience.

Made it to the train station with plenty of time to spare and this time with no confusion over tracks. We’re not sure what we’re going to do for dinner. It would be nice to have time for Biagi, the place that Barbara recommended, but they don’t open until 8, and we would rather eat early and get to bed early so that we’re recharged and ready for tomorrow. We should arrive back at Bologna around 7, and will probably eat something on the way home rather than having to go out again.

We went back to Rossopomodoro for dinner because the food had been good, it hadn’t been a hard walk back to the B&B, and there would be people around. Madame had a fusillilike pasta with delicious tomato sauce and parmesan sprinking. I had a huge salad of mixed greens (plus radichio), with just a little caesar dressing, shaved parmesan, really fresh avocado, and perfectly grilled chicken. Desert was a shared bowl of Lindt chocolate/rum gelato.

Because it was liberation day, a national holiday, the streets were swarming with people, mostly on the young side—something I increasingly notice as I approach 60. It was an amazing bustle, but all very well behaved and civilized. Despite the recent rightward shift in Italian politics, not protest riots that we’ve heard of, though many peace banners in evidence, and many flags of socialist or communist parties in evidence here and there.

Home to a reasonably early night.

Next day: April 26: Rimini