Ravenna is worth it

Ravenna is truly one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The city is absolutely amazing. It helps when you get a private tour from your former Italian professor who is a native Ravennese... Ravenneis... Ravennian...? person from Ravenna.

The city is pretty close to the sea too, so there is a really beautiful springtime breeze. We tried to go to the beach, but we didn't know where to get off the bus and kind of just rode in a big circle for 40 minutes on the bus. I think the beach was hidden behind a bunch of pine trees and we had to walk down 1 of these really weird dirt roads to get there.

We did get to see a ton of gorgeous mosaics, though, which made up for everything--including a really, really creepy guy who stared at us the entire train ride (no joke). He even called his mom over to come stare at us for a few minutes. It was rather bizarre and chilling at the same time. My friend blamed it on my blonde hair. Apparently no one in Italy has ever seen it before.

(No picture because I was too afraid for my life and dignity.)

But I think I can endure 1 hour and 8 minutes of freakish staring for this. -Basilica di San Vitale

I think it is also worth mentioning that I love my Panasonic Lumix camera. I mean, sometimes the "forced flash off" pictures come out a bit shaky if my hand moves mid-snap, but if you hold the camera with two hands, it takes pictures which beat all the other digital cameras in my group!

Besides the little bit of sunlight coming through the tiny doorway with a curtain covering most of it and those small alabaster-covered windows, there wasn't a lot of light in Mausoleo di Galla Placida.

And when I get my own house, I think a mosaic ceiling like this would be really nice, right? 

Ravenna is also the final resting place of Dante Alighieri and wow, are the people of Ravenna proud of that fact. They won't let Florence forget it! Or have him back, of course! During WWII, Ravenna went to great lengths to keep his bones safe from bombs and looters, Florentines, etc. and hid them under this big pile of dirt and ivy. 

I'm not really sure why people weren't confused or suspicious of a big mound of dirt appearing suddenly overnight, but whatever. 

This is the former tomb of Dante. I guess the mound of dirt was a good idea if this was the only other option available.

Dante's new mausoleum/tomb

Dante's current headstone/tomb

The Basilica of San Apollinare Nuova was also really interesting if you have someone knowledgeable and awesome with you to explain why there are floating hands on some of the mosaic pillars.

This used to be a pagan temple with people in between the pillars. But when they converted it to a Christian church, they took out the people and put in curtains. I guess they got tired or were too lazy to fix the pillars, though. Or they thought no one would notice that those hands don't have bodies.

The Basilica di San Francesco, though, has to be the coolest thing about Ravenna. And, really, it's only this really small space in the whole huge church that is so amazing. It's behind the rather unimpressive high vaulted ceilings and naves and what-have-yous (okay, I mean, they would be impressive if you hadn't seen ancient Greek architecture in Sicily and amazing Byzantine mosaics in all the other churches in Ravenna). See, the soil in Ravenna is super soft--good for agriculture, but really crappy for building preservation. And because the soil is so soft, the old buildings in Ravenna are actually sinking. The Basilica di San Francesco has been sinking for a really, really long time. During that time, the people of Ravenna have had to keep building a new floor so that the church remains at street level. And the water table is so high that the water has covered some of the lower floors (there are about 3 or 4 floor levels). But the really cool part is that under that water, the first floor of the church was once covered in mosaics (much like the rest of Ravenna). Because the water is covering these mosaics, the church keeps goldfish in the water to keep it clean so you can see the awesome mosaics from this little balcony in the back of the church.

In Ferrara this weekend, we had a Chocolate Festival (yes, Italy really is that awesome). This is a picture of the absolutely adorable--and edible!--chocolate animals at one of the booths.