Day 18

Italy 2011

Day 18

We had another adventurous day when we took a train to the town of Ravenna, the town famous for its mosaics. It’s close to the coast. This town is a little smaller than Lucca, and it doesn’t have all the tour groups. It’s not a college town, so there are a lot of people our age….which means there is more of the traditional Italian food. When you are in a place like Bologna, a college town, you see a lot of fast food kinds of places. We have found that the food in Bologna is not as good as that in the surrounding smaller towns.

Bikes are a big thing in Ravenna, and we discovered that tourists (us!) can ride bikes for free, and they are good bikes. These bikes are parked in various racks throughout the town. All we had to do was go to the tourist information center, fill out a form, and get a key. Then we could choose any yellow bike from any one of the city racks and ride all day.

We bought tickets that would let us into five museums and churches. What’s really different about the churches, bapistries, and masoleums in Ravenna is that instead of the frescoes being painted, like most everywhere else, they are made with mosaics, little tiles put together to form a picture. Even the floors are mosaics.  We were looking at art from the 5^th century and it looked pretty darn good for being over 1500 years old.  

We went into one museum that is world-famous for its Ivory Throne (also 5^th century).  It was amazing and we wish we could share a picture, but picture taking was strictly forbidden at the museum.

Our lunch was at a place we researched, and we chose to sit outside, as usual. There was a regular menu, but we chose the menu of the day where we paid one low price for two courses. The first was wonderful homemade ravioli stuffed with spinach and rocotta, and the second course was a skewer of pork and peppers, which came with roasted potatoes. We added wine, of course, and ended with espresso drinks to keep us moving.

We felt very calm and peaceful in this town and would like to come back. We would also like to come back to Imola (see day 16) on the same trip.

After getting back to Bologna, we had to figure out another place for dinner.  Such problems we have! Our favorite desk person at our hotel suggested a place called Pizzeria La Mela, and it turned out to be our favorite place in Bologna….very inexpensive and fantastic food. Bob ordered a wonderful pizza while Shari ordered an arucola salad and a plate of grilled vegetables, because she couldn’t eat any more carbs. After we were finished eating and paying, we watch the pizza man making the crusts (including throwing them, topping them with all the various ingredients, and sliding them into the brick oven.   We was the best we’ve seen.  Roberto told him in Italian that he was a good man, and he appreciated it, but his wife working the register had a different take on his worthiness.

Tomorrow we will have a very long day ahead of us. We will take a train to Venice and a bus to Croatia. We were planning to take a fast boat from Venice, but it doesn’t operate on Monday!