Italy - Day 10 - Ravenna

We woke up to a new sound on this vacation – that of raindrops on our window.  There had been some rain forecast in the previous days which we had managed to avoid, but as all weather reports were predicting a 90% chance of precipitation over all of Italy there was no escaping it this time.  It didn’t turn out too badly, we only got light showers in the morning, with a return to sunny weather in the afternoon.

We didn’t have a whole lot planned for our second day in Ravenna.  When we went to our first stop of the day, the Museo Nazionale, and found it closed, we knew we would likely end up having a bit of a rest day, which, in all fairness, I think we’ve earned. 

So the itinerary now only included the Basilica di San Vitale, a 6^th century church with, you guessed it, stunning mosaics.  These are made out to be some of the best preserved and most elaborate.  They were impressive, although the fact that they only covered one apse of the church was a little disappointing after the big build up.  On the same site was the Mausoleum of Gallia Placida, the wife and sister of two emperors.  Their sarcophagi all rest in a small building on the grounds of San Vitale.  Again, the ceiling is completely covered in amazing mosaic work, with a roof of stars.  It also has interesting windows covered by very thin slabs of marble that become semi-transparent in the sunlight.  I think we may have liked this little building the most of all Ravenna.

Our last stop was at the Stone Carpets of Petrus, which displays the excavated remains of a 5^th century villa with most of its mosaic floors still intact.  They apparently found it only recently while trying to add an underground carpark to the church above.  They were in amazing shape given their age and location.

We emerged from the underground display to find most of the town shut down for about 15 minutes to honour the victims of the recent earthquakes in Emilia-Romagna.  When looking at all the old buildings and leaning bell towers, you could imagine that the locals are very keenly aware of the devastation these events – terremoto in Italian – can cause.

As we had nothing else on the schedule we walked around town a little bit, stopping for lunch at the first place we saw that served a good meal-sized salad.  The afternoon was spent quietly in the hotel room, catching up on blog posts, writing post-cards and planning itineraries for the rest of the trip.  We had dinner again at Babaleus, this time indulging in some of their fantastic pizza.  We did another walk about town in the evening before returning to the hotel. 

We switched on the TV and caught up on the latest French Open results and the gruesome story of the Montreal nutjob mailing body parts to political parties.  The only real English language channels we have had for the past ten days have been CNN and BBC World Service, but there is really only so long you can sit and listen to stories about Syria, so we moved to an Italian movie channel, where one of our favourite movies (don’t judge!) – Blade Trinity – was playing, dubbed over in Italian.  We actually watched the last three quarters of the movie, gradually picking up more and more of the language.  I’d suggest this as a good way to learn any language – take a movie you know well enough to quote and watch it dubbed over in whatever language you want to learn.  You’d be surprised how much you pick up.

It’s been due to more than movie watching, but our Italian is gradually getting better.  Things from the course we took are starting to come back.  We’re looking forward to getting into Tuscany where the dialect we learnt to speak is prevalent.  But that’s for another day.