Ravenna, day 2

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Ravenna, day 2

I woke up before the alarm this morning – because the room is a mini-suite I could get up, use the wash room and get on my iPad without bothering Aviva.

We cancelled tonight in Bologna – no one knows anything about a strike so we’ll go back to our original plan to train to Bologna tomorrow.

We started with a taxi ride to M.A.R., the local art museum. Nice collection but not a good catalog and no photos are a bad combination.

We walked over to Santa Maria in Porto.

We took a quick look at the Palazzo di Teodorico, which is mostly a ruin with an exhibit of parts of the mosaic floors inside – you have to climb the intact tower (watch 0ut – the steps are not regularly spaced) and down the main hallway.

Next we took a short walk down the street to the Basilica di Sant’Apolinare Nuovo; the mosaics running down both sides of the inner walls inside are fantastic!

There were other details in the basilica that were quite interesting also.

There are no restaurants in this part of town; Aviva noticed a place down a side street, Ristorante Pizzeria “Al Passatore,”and we ran into Canadians and Americans. And the TV was playing “The Simpsons” in Italian. The food was simple and good.

We walked over to Basilica S. Giovanni Evangelista; this church is bare bones, the inside was stripped after the bombing during World War II – on the walls are some details from the mosaics that survived.

A short walk further along was Battistero degli Ariani, which is a small baptistry outside Spirito Santo (which is closed). This is a UNESCO site (there are 8 in Ravenna and we saw 6 of them – the rest are on the edges of town) and for good reason – the ceiling mosaic is wonderful, one of the best I’ve seen.

Our last stop was at S. Giovanni Battista; they seem to leave rosaries out for the poor to use for prayer.

We walked to Cavour to try to get Aviva some bandaids (I got temporarily lost for the second time in this trip…) – the farmicia was too far down, so she went back to the hotel and I hunted down an ATM. I grabbed a Coke Light and headed back to the room to shower before dinner.

We had a nice dinner at Ristorante Cappello, got a schedule of trains to Bologna, and crashed.

Location:Via Salara,Ravenna,Italy

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