The Ravenna mosaics

After a couple of decades visiting beautiful parts of the world we --- well, it's not that we're getting blasé but there's a lot of tremendous beauty we've already seen and you start to think you cannot be so easily bowled over anymore.
How very wrong we were.

The most famous mosaics in Ravenna are said to be in the Basilica San Vitale.
So there we went.
And entered.
And were knocked out with what we saw. I remember the two of us walking around, dumbstruck, for at least half an hour before we got out into the Basilica's garden to get some breath.

You simply have no idea how stunning these mosaics are. And that's even before you realise the Basilica was built in 526-547 AD (do let this sink in). Therefore the mosaics are almost 2000 years old.
That's deep time, readers.
You walk on a - perfectly preserved - 2000 year old marble inlaid floor. You simply cannot grab this concept, and even now we can hardly believe it.

Time to let you see what we're talking about.
I start with photos of the San Vitale, and end with one taken in the church of San Francesco we strolled into and found it housed a flooded vault - with a mosaic on the bottom and fish swimming in it - weird!

We were going to Venice. So now we're in Ravenna.

Our initial idea was to go to Venice for a couple of days. I very much wanted Pieter to see this city - I'd been there half a lifetime ago and I seriously think you should see Venice if only once in your life - since Venice cannot be compared with any other city in the world.

But then, we would be in Italy and not see - Italy.
Like Ravenna, a must see because of the famous, World Heritage, mosaics. While in the neighbourhood we might as well go there and see them. And just south of Ravenna we found the intriguing, tiny republic of San Marino, with its own army (the smallest in the world) and its own Euro coins (extremely rare, so highly sought after).

So our plans expanded quickly, and in the end we whipped up a very satisfying (ok, IMHO) programme. First we would visit Italy's mainland. For our visit to Ravenna and San Marino we pre-booked hotels, then we would see wherever we wanted to go for the next couple of days before spending the last four days of our holiday in Venice.

Ravenna turned out to be a charming city.
I must tell more about charming cities in Italy.

As far as I have seen every city in Italy has a wonderful historic inner city.
Around it a ring of rather non descript residential areas, often rather ungainly condominiums but still very much Italy and a good area to find a not too expensive hotel.
We found - and it's not only the cities with a harbour - a lot of the cities possess vast heavy industry areas, full of huge factories, warehouses and storage tanks. Rather ugly but fascinating since these areas are so close to the cities that are flocked with tourists from all over the world.

In Ravenna the industrial zone is situated between the city itself and it's 'Lido', the city's seaside resort. We visited both this area (bordering the outskirts of Ravenna) and the seaside resort next to it. Amazing.

But that's not what we came for. Here are some pictures of Ravenna, and because I'm a librarian a couple of pictures of a beautiful, centuries old library (the Bibliotheca Classense, officialy closed to the public) and handwritten index cards (!).
In the next blog we'll enter the Cathedrals, the churches and the mausolea and we'll baffle you with the mozaics.

Water and Land

We are in the north-eastern corner of Italy, not far from the Austrian border. East of us the Adriatic - we're near the northern end - and the countries of Slovenia and Croatia.
We've just landed at Venice's Marco Polo Aiport, and picked up our tiny Fiat 500, the famous cinque cento. Driving the ancient Roman road, close to the sea, the landscape alternating between land, marshes and the laguna.

It's a quiet and unobtrusive region, and already much greener than Holland. The temperature is far more agreeable too, for that matter, even with the slightly fuzzy sky. 'A green and pleasant land'.

No, the landscape is not spectacular. To be honest, it looks like Holland - with an Italian feel to it.
But where 'misty' in Holland turns the colours grey, here they turn into a hazy pastel blue.
We like it.

We cannot see the sea, but ever so often we have water on both sides. It's marshland, shallow water, land flooded because of the high tide.
We see cabanas with huge fishing nets hung out to dry. Never seen this fishing method before - and then we realise we're abroad, and on holiday!

'Ohhh, we simply lóve Italy'

When we talk about Italy over here, the immediate reaction of almost anyone is a very enthusiastic and slightly breathless 'ohhh, we simply lóve Italy!'
We do too - but then, that's a bit of a silly thing to say, isn't it?
I mean, I haven't seen that much of Italy yet.

A bit of very popular Toscane (and the usual suspects: Firenze, Pisa, Siena...), the stunningly beautiful Cinque Terre south of Genova, where you enter the country coming from France. A bit of the North, after a trip that got us via the Dolomiti mountains into the river Po flatlands and the laguna near Venice. And Venice itself.

That's it. Nevertheless, I heartily agree with anyone voicing their love for Italy and all I can say after our ten days' holiday this month is that I want to go back asap. Ohh, I simply lóve.....


After this initial blog you'll read about (and see lots of photos of) the city of Ravenna and its world famous mosaics.
About the Po Delta: a vast area of marshlands and lagunas, and the city of Comacchio in the middle of it, dubbed 'Little Venice'. About the oldest and smallest republic in the world: San Marino, just south of Ravenna and bang in the middle of Italy's countryside.
We go inland, again Po country, to Verona and its famous Arena, to Vicenza with the houses - the Villa Rotunda! - and the Olympic theatre by the famous architect Palladio, and finally to the reason why we went to Italy: Venice!

Just about everything you see when travelling in Italy - and especially in cities like Venice - is as stunning as you see in travel guides.
We walked around - mid April - in summer weather: blue skies and a fiery sun. Our strolls were regularly interrupted by extremely yummy food.
Enjoy!