Ravenna

We traveled through the Veneto and Emilia Romagna regions to Ravenna. As a tribute to Pavarotti, Karin bought a CD so we could listen to his music on the bus. (We also listened to some of Giorgio’s Italian music from time to time.) From the bus, we could see colorful sacks of harvested potatoes, many fields of tobacco, and of course, lots of grapes.

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The mosaic detail is incredible. Each tile is about
1/4 inch square.

Our local guide in Ravenna - More talking with the hands!

Ravenna's Basilica di San Vitale

Day 3 - Monday - 17-September-2007

In the morning, we left Padua on the bus. We met Giorgio Dolche, our bus driver. The words “Giorgio Dolche” in Italian translate to “Sweet George” in English. The bus was comfortable, with plenty of seats so that nearly everyone could have their own window seat if they wanted. Karin encouraged us to keep the same seats each day when getting on and off the bus, then choose a different seat in a different part of the bus each subsequent day. This worked well and allowed us an opportunity to get to know more of our tour buddies.

Learning about the Byzantine mosaics
Tour Group in Ravenna

Juanita, David, and Nancy listen intently

Inside the Mausoleum in Ravenna

The tower of Basilica di San Vitale

Just across the courtyard, we went to Basilica di San Vitale. The beautiful mosaics continued in the church where they depict many familiar biblical stories. The colors are still vibrant and the “gold” is incredibly brilliant. When the tiles were produced, the gold leaf was sandwiched between two layers of glass so the gold does not deteriorate. The colored tiles have the color infused into the glass so that it does not fade. I can’t help but appreciate the quality and longevity of the mosaics.

Arriving in Ravenna, we met our local tour guide just outside our first stop, the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. The mosaics are nearly 1500 years old. It’s hard enough to imagine anything that old, but the colors and detail are such that they could have been created yesterday.

On our way through Umbria we were detoured off the main highway by construction and “had” to take the bus through the hills. Because of the detour, we got to see and appreciate the countryside from a different perspective. Karin began to tell us about our next stop, Montone and “The Capitan” who runs the hotel. Since Karin knew that the Captain’s birthday was the next day, she taught us to sing “Happy Birthday to You” in Italian. Same tune, different words. “Tutia Guiora a ta”. As it turned out, we really got our money’s worth out of this song (there were a few other birthdays later in the tour). Flush with our new linguistic knowledge, we headed for Montone, a small and relatively non-tourist hill town.

Before leaving Ravenna, Steve and I tried to find a better view of the church by going around to the other side. It was quite an excursion and the view was not as good as from the other side. (Why would they put a parking lot there?)

After finishing the local tour with a short visit to the town, we had a lunch of the local specialty, piadina. Piadina is similar to a tortilla, folded and sealed and then stuffed with “whatever you want”. We had pomodoro (Italian for tomato) and mozzarella (Italian for mozzarella). It was really pretty good and hit the spot.