I went from Florence to Ravenna for a couple of nights and realised that what I had hoped would be an atmospheric, historic Byzantine town is now a huge sprawing industrial complex surrounded by all the infrastructure needed to support the port and the industrial estates that give it a livelihood.
The reason I wanted to see Ravenna was that I wrote a thesis in my first year at art college about images of the Pantocrator (God the Father) in Byzantine and Romanesque art and I'd got all my illustrations from books and never seen a single relevant mosaic. One of the finest is in the basicila of St Apollinare, always said to be in Ravenna. So I booked my hotel right opposite St Apollinare, Ravenna, found the place with huge difficulty because like all Italian cities it has a labyrinthine one-way system, and went forth next morning to draw the mosaic.
BUT I should have read my guide book - which I now did, and discovered that the original St Apollinare is in Classe, a bus-ride away.... I was staying next to the new church, which has only fragments of ancient mosaics on display, and none in its ceiling - in fact it has no cupola or apse big enough to house one.
So I got on the bus because I'd had enough of circling around in Ravenna in the car the day before. It all worked out very well. I spent the afternoon drawing in the ancient basilica and as usual providing welcome relief to the school children of all ages who were trying to avoid their history teachers lectures.
Then I went back to the historic centre where my hotel lay and had a very pleasant look around the local area. I found the Piazza S. Francesco where there is a beautiful church which has a Roman pavement, underwater, in the crypt. For 0.5 euros in a slot you can switch the light on in the crypt and peep though a hole near the altar at the strange sight of goldfish swimming around in a few feet of water over the remains of the Roman floor, among the graceful pillars and arches of the vault below.
Dante's tomb is there too, in a sepulchre that is being restored at the moment. I took a lot of photos of this area of Ravenna, which was interesting and pretty in the evening light.
The hotel where I stayed is a converted seventeenth century palace with lovely marble staircases, a beautiful little garden and a chapel. It's called Ostello. Galletti Abbiosi Dimora Storica. The breakfast was very good for an Italian hotel, the people were friendly and helpful and the bed was comfortable and the shower hot. It's quite near the train station and Upim and more expensive shops are on hand too. It was medium priced and good value and I would stay there again. This is the main staicase, with a rather grand, green marble balustrade.
The only thing that I thought might turn out a problem was that there is no restaurant in the hotel and at first I couldn't see anywhere to eat when I went out into the rain on the first night. When in doubt, I was taught by my mother, "ask a policeman". So, seeing a police van with some extremely paternal looking moustachioed officers sitting on the corner of the Via Di Roma, I did just that and was rewarded with directions to a lovely little place called "La Gardela".
There I had three delicious courses, half a bottle of wine and some water, for what I thought a pretty reasonable price, 33 euros. The place was packed with local people though next to me was a couple who reminded me very much of myself and my ex-husband in another life. That didn't spoil my evening at all - quite the contrary.
I discovered that Ravenna has its own leaning tower - a very ramshackle affair compared to Pisa's, and square in section, not round.
I didn't like to walk too close to it though it is clamped with metal stays to a height of about 10 metres, perhaps more. It looks ready to collapse. I couldn't see a name on it and it's not shown on the little tourist map I have, but it's in the area of the Basilica di San Giovanni Evangelista.
In that church I found a Neapolitan nativity scene, a big construction with a cave leading down to hell (you can see the demons and their unfortunate victims who are hung up by the heels and probably doing their best to repent fast) and angels hovering above. There's a group of priests gossiping and clearly ignoring a poor beggar, too. The whole scene is alive with gesturing hands as the characters converse, pray, lament, joke, poke fun and generally enact their lives. I didn't actually spot the crib because the surrounding action was so interesting. Of course I made a donation.
I also went shopping and bought some pretty things.
So though I did tell one of my myspace friends that I didn't think much of Ravenna (I was tired and the car and I were still not seeing eye-to-eye) I've changed my mind as so often happens.
11th April 2008
Yesterday, 10th April, I was in Rimini, on the Adriatic coast. In my usual careless fashion I failed to find the sea, though this town, and Ravenna, where I stayed the night before, are seaside towns and important seaports. Except in Praiano, where the sea is a source of continual pleasure to me all year round, looking at beaches seems a pointless exercise in April in the northern Mediterranean.So on this trip I've stuck to the towns and I haven't been disappointed.
Ravenna and Rimini are at the sea's edge of a huge coastal plain. The Netherlands are not less hilly. Bicyles are everywhere, especially in the towns. They greatly outnumber the scooters. Very different from the South, where bicycles are ridden almost exclusively by the very fit and lycra-clad.
Rimini seemed to me to have a very welcoming centre. I kept thinking, "This is a smiling town". It's calm, unhurried, at this time of year at least. I parked behind an immense crumbling castle, hugely castellated and buttressed.
Later I found this on the map I bought in the Piazza Cavour. It's the Castello Sigismondo. A plaque on the wall, erected at the same time as the castle by the look of it, dated it in the early 1400's. It's in extreme disrepair and I couldn't see an entrance though there were boys sitting chatting high up on the walls.
I walked towards the centre and found the Piazza Cavour, lined with dignified mediaeval looking buildings. The plaque on the most impressive one was in Italian and German, reminding me of the role of Italy in the Second World war but also that this coast is a favourite holiday area for German and Eastern bloc tourists.
I went on to the Piazza Tre Martiri.
I could see the Piazza San Francesco to one side. Every town in Umbria and Tuscany seems to have a church and piazza dedicated to this attractively gentle saint. In the Tre Martiri I found smart shops and brightly stuccoed buildings in Naples yellow and white, including a pretty white temple (hexagonal I think), il Tempietto di Sant Antonio.
From the far end of the square I walked down to the Arco d'Augusto that stands between the historic centre and the Parco di Bondi, a lovely green area.
A beautiful tree nearby was covered with magenta flowers, worth a photo on its own.
I retraced my steps and stopped in the Piazza Cavour for a very good tuna and bean salad in the Caffe Teatro. The owner, a cheerful, whistling man, was here, there and everywhere, welcoming clients and shooing away the cheeky pigeons that kept coming down and knocking over the tableware and pecking at the warm bread on the tables. The bill (6 euros for a salad and a large bottle of water and warm bread) was very reasonable, considering the status of the location and the large helping of fresh tuna in the salad.
Today I'm in Terni. I would never have thought of visiting Terni were it not that two of my Myspace friends work there. Neither of them live there but I made it part of my circuitous route back towards Florence, to see Terni out of simple curiosity.
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