As noted earlier, Ravenna was a late ‘add in’ to the tour due to the abrupt cancellation of our ferry from Ancona to Split. However it’s turned out to be a very nice addition.
Clark Griswold is my travel muse, so it’s no surprise that we, or at least me, showed up here just about completely clueless on what we’d find.
I do know of Wikipedia though, so a quick search revealed that this place is chock full of UNESCO sites and is principally noted for its outstanding collection of circa 5th century mosaics. Let’s have a look at some of them!
Setting off for our Mosaic tour of Ravenna. This is the lovely square immediately north of our apartment. One of the last pics posted yesterday was from almost this exact spot as the sun was setting over the empty square. I always find it so amazing that these ‘Pop up’ markets can be set up so quickly. There are a lot of early risers I guess.
Lyle McLeodTo Bill ShaneyfeltYes they are. I thought I uploaded the previous picture I took, which were of lovely lemons! Guess I need to pay more attention to what I’m writing about, and uploading. Think I’ll change the caption to Kool Kumquats (my spelling is challenged too) Reply to this comment 1 week ago
And now on to the mosaics. We bought a “Mosaic package” for lack of a better term, to five of the main cathedrals/ basilicas/ mausoleum’s housing the most significant mosaics.
Quite impressive and we we there when there was quite a bit of natural light. One of my first impressions though that this was was laid out like a junior high school dance. Martyrs (guys) on one side …
The small mosaics at the very top were depictions of ‘the miracles’ attributed to Jesus. Given that the majority of the people in these times were illiterate these would have been their ‘books’
On to number three, the Neonian Bapistry. This was a very small structure dating again from the 5th century. For this place we had an allotted time window for entry, and the requisite queue to get into to get that time slot!
There are always nice views in Ravenna, even when you’re standing in a queue
The main event, the ceiling mosaic depicting John the Baptist baptising Jesus. Of particular note is the mosaic’s depiction of Jesus standing in the water of the River Jordan.
Off to numbers Four and Five which fortunately were beside each other. Number four was the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, another small plain building from the outside with a really stunning interior. Given the small size, we had a timed entry slot for this one too.
It was quite dark inside, with the limited natural light being provided by windows whose ‘panes’ were very thin alabaster (apparently a modern addition)
Very majestic, ornate and impressive! These are the most extensive and best preserved Byzantine era mosaics outside of Istanbul and date from the 5th century
.. and back out into the glorious sunshine. A perfect day with temps in the low 20’s. Given that it’s Easter weekend, there are crowds around but they are very manageable. This is the perfect time of year to be here we think.
That marathon of churches, basilicas and religious mosaics worked up an appetite. We sated that at L’Acciuga, a wonderful seafood focused place where the interior replicates (quite well) the interior of an old steamer ship.
We had their seven course tasting menu and a great bottle of very local (DOGC Rimini) Rebola (a new grape for us) - Vi Vi. Our waiter even recounted a touching back story of how the wine got its name and interesting label.
Foodies delight, a sampling of what we had (and it was all great).
As usual, we were the first to arrive (as the doors opened) but the place was full soon enough.
Scallops with foie, squid ink and hazelnuts. This was the second time we had scallops with hazelnuts this week (the other was at Magnolia). An Italian thing I guess but it’s great
I still have that Tango thing rattling around in my head and given the very old Byzantine era stuff we were looking at, I kept having ear worms of Lorena McKinnett songs all day. She’s always seemed to me to be ‘of this time’ so ….
Tango to Evora, by Lorena McKinnett (a great Canadian artist from Winnipeg)
