Ravenna - Italy, not Ohio!

Ravenna is an amazing city.  Once known as  the city "Classe," it was an imperial port.  It had been invaded by the barbarians but gained prominence when, in A.D. 540, the Byzantine emperor Justinian turned the city into the western most location for the Byzantine Empire.  Today the place is filled with remnants of that era - beautiful mosaics.  A single ticket gains you entrance to all of the major places where the mosaics remain. The two most significant places were the Basilica of San Vitale and the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia.  It's hard to fathom how difficult mosaic creations are.  We were told it could take as much as a week to do a 1x1 foot mosaic.  But these were not only artistic.  They served the purpose of providing a "catechism" for people long before the printing press and in the days when only the wealthiest of families could read or write.

We stayed at a little hotel called Hotel Antica.  I would highly recommend it.  Not only was it close

to the train station but they even provide bikes for the hotel guests to use.  Ravenna has the most bikes of any city in Italy and I believe it to be true!  We saw hundreds of them and really enjoyed biking all around.

The train to Florence from Ravenna took 3 hours.  It was a local train that seemed to stop everywhere.  Fortunately the high speed train from Florence to Rome only took 1.5 hours and we arrived home, exhausted but fulfilled, by 10:00 p.m.