I awoke to the sound of cooing doves or pigeons, and I was not pleased about that. It was still pitch black out, and I needed the sleep. I tossed and turned for a little while, when to my shock Mer’s alarm went off; it was set for 7:30. The room was still pitch black. I investigated, and it turned out the farm house “shutters” were actually solid, so they blocked out all light.
We got ready and had a nice breakfast of rolls and very fresh scrambled eggs. While we were eating, the peacock called a few times, so I decided I wanted to go see it before we checked out. We walked around the back of the house to the pen where the peacock and peahens live, but we did not have a good view. As such, we worked our way around the adjacent goat pen so we could get a better angle. After we’d gotten most of the way around, we met a small horse that was untethered. He was cute and walked past me, right to Mer, whom he promptly headbutted in the arm and tried to bite. I shooed him off, but as soon as I walked a few paces away, he tried to get at Mer again. This happened a third time; we then decided discretion was the better part of valor, and we fled inside to check out. It turns out the small horse is very young, and likes to play, including biting. So noted. While Mer paid the bill, I sneaked outside to try to take some pictures of the peacock, which I managed to do. It is a bit of a strange thing to be “on the lookout” for an herbivore.
We headed back to the bus stop, where we were disappointed to find out that there were no buses to Padua, which was only ten to fifteen miles away. Instead, we had to get a bus back to Venice, which was about twenty miles away. At least we managed to get seats at the back, so that we could avoid the crush of people who eventually filled the bus.
When we got back to Venice, we schlepped our luggage over to the train station, where we found that the next available train to our next destination, Ravenna, was about an hour-and-a-half wait. That was the first time this whole trip we had to wait for more than thirty mintues. We took advantage of the time, even with luggage in tow, to head back out into the city. We immediately jumped down a back alley to get away from the crowds, and we emerged ten minutes later on a side canal that seemed to be used largely for commercial boating. We found some canal-side chairs at a restaurant, and we ordered a dessert to munch on while we waited for our train. It was a tremendously pleasant spot, and the food was very good.
Our train ride from Venice to Ferrara was easy and straightforward. The train system in Italy is, by and large, excellent. We were a bit surprised when we saw that the train to which we were transferring was a two-car train, driven by diesel engine instead of the usual electric engine. This little train never got going terribly fast, and it stopped at many small stations, but it did get us to Ravenna around 4:00. As an aside, we did amuse ourselves by watching a group of four Italian teenaged males, when they would check out pretty girls who walked by. Some stereotypes have some truths in them.
Our hostel, which turned out to be pretty basic, was a fifteen-minute walk from the train station. I have to admit I doubted Meredith a tad at this point. The entire fifteen-minute walk was very pedestrian and nondescript, and I could not think of why we were in Ravenna. There were no mountains, no lakes, no ocean – nothing I could see to make me think this was a place to see. Happily, it turned out I was very wrong.
Ravenna has lots of history, and much of it takes the form of religious art or architecture. Once we checked into the hostel, we walked back to the center of the city, which is mostly pedestrian-only (always a big plus in my book). On a tip from the receptionist at the hostel, we checked out the church of San Francesco. She told us to look for fish. Okay. We saw a door under the altar area, and it had a slot for money. I put a euro in the slot, and a dark area lit up – it was the access to the old Roman crypts, with some surviving mosaics on the floor. That was all cool enough, but in the fifteen-hundred-plus years since the crypts were built, the water level has risen, so the crypt is under three feet of water, and goldfish now swim around in there. It was quite cool. As an added bonus, the organist of the church was playing while we were there.
And if that were not enough, around the side of the church is the tomb of the Italian poet Dante. We wandered over to see that and the park next to the tomb where the people of Ravenna buried the body of Dante during World War 2 to protect it.
We proceeded on to the main sight of the town – the Basilica di San Vitale. It is an impressive church outside, but the inside was mind-blowing to me. I love religious art, and my favorite art forms are sculpture and mosaics. I had always thought old mosaics were always in pieces on floors of old buildings. Not here. Here, the mosaics are intact, on the floor and walls and ceiling, and they are the most spectacular mosaics I have ever seen. They are subtle and colorful and look as if they could have been painted on. They were brilliant. The church even had a prayer labyrinth, which Mer and I used to pray for some sick friends of ours. What a beautiful church.
In the back yard, so to speak, of the church is the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. The Roman woman for whom it is named is probably not buried inside, but the inside is completely covered in more impressive mosaics, and these are the oldest in Ravenna – probably from the fifth century. They were amazing.
We swung by another famous mosaic-rich church – the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. This church has rich mosaics down each side of the church, one side celebrating Mary and the other celebrating Jesus.
We were running out of time, since most sights close at 7:00, but we squeezed in one free sight that closed at 7:30 – the free Arian Baptistery. This small building was built by Arians (heretical Christians who claimed Jesus was created by God and was just human until infused with divinity at his baptism), and the ceiling still has a grand mosaic of the baptism of Jesus.
By now, most of the sights in town were closed down, so we headed off to supper. We dined outside, as is Mer’s preference, and sat next to some Germans on one side, with some American girls we had seen on the train sitting behind us. After supper, we grabbed some gelato from the pedestrian area, and we headed back to the hostel for the evening. What a pleasant surprise Ravenna has turned out to be.