Ravenna to Florence

Ravenna 19 0ctober

"So", Andreas says, "if you have to choose, go to Ravenna instead of Florence." Now there's no way I'm going to  miss Florence, so it looks like we have to go to Ravenna. And here we are.
 
The big lure of Ravenna is not its pretty piazzas and graceful streets, although it gets a tick for both. But it's still just a pleasant small town. What brings people to Ravenna is the mosaics.
 
We've seen a lot of Roman mosaics, and they are nice, very nice, very interesting, with great vignettes of daily life that bring history to life. People dancing, shepherds, cooks and butchers at work, people lolling about having a good time, children playing. These are not the mosaics of Ravenna.
 
The first difference is that these mosaics are from the early Christian church. Like around 400 a.d. And they are incredibly vivid, some gold, but mostly bright blues and lots of green. There are all the usual suspects that show up in paintings later - lines of apostles, baptism in the River Jordan scenes. But, as well, really  interesting pictures of the court of the time, Justinian and Theodora, and another ruler Theodorus. And scenes of the sky with stars. And one mosaic with 99 different birds faithfully reproduced.
 
There's a mausoleum built by Galla Placida who was a daughter, sister, wife and mother of emporors and who ruled Roman Western Europe for many years. A mosaic of her in Brescia (we bought the postcard) shows a very beautiful woman with pearl earrings and necklace who could be walking down any street around here right now. Except that she happened to be that well-connected.
 
There are 8 world heritage sites for these mosaics in Ravenna, and you could spend hours staring at them, except that most of them are on the ceilings and you'd get an awful crick in your neck. Art appreciation only goes so far. There are chapels and churches with long lines of mosaics down the sides, and ceilings full of them, shining and sparkling as the light catches them.  Paint fades, but mosaics keep their colour, it is stunning.
 
It's all very clever - in a museum we saw one close up and getting the detail right so a face looks like a face ain't that easy. What looks just right from a distance, like from the floor of a massive church looks quite different close up. Lips a ragged line of tiny different coloured tiles transform into a realistic mouth. Those guys knew what they were doing. It is astonishing just how vivid they still are, and how lively. It is awe-inspiring to think of these being done 1500 years ago.
 
We tick the sites off one by one, each one an absolute delight, lovely graceful plain buildings on the outside, then astonishing inside. After the first one we knew what to expect. Was it worth it (cost of train trip, two nights in hotel, two days not walking)? Oh absolutely. We are eager to get walking again, but we wouldn't have missed Ravenna. We're going to love the photos.

 
Ravenna to Florence 20 October

This is the thing about Florence – it's still there after all this time. This is the other thing – despite the fact that those buildings have been there for upawrds of 500 years, I remembered it all completely differently. Clearly we needed to come back just to set things straight.

We have an early start in Ravenna, breakfast then trot down to the station. It is another very easy transfer from there to Florence, despite the fact that the train we were going to catch was cancelled, you just don't pick up small details like that in the announcements. This was going to make us miss our connection in Bologna, but, as usual the ticket office lady was very helpful and sorted it all out. Then, zip, like magic we arrived in Florence.

Something nice happened on the way – that flat, dreary landscape emerged into lovely rolling wooded hills. Woo hoo, we can't wait to get back onto that track.

But first we're going to have the Florence moment. There's a phenomenon here that we have noticed before. In France we read that there was a particular bloke who in about 1300 designed lots of castles, two in France that we know of, and Carnarvon in England. And we thought, maybe it was like this – when you wanted a castle designed you'd say to your courtiers, “Get the castle guy, will you.” And we think maybe there was a mosaics guy, too. And now in Florence there was for sure the palace guy. But working just for the Medicis, whipping off mansion afer mansion all over the area. He didn't flit around Europe, he just rolled 'em out here. Every time you turn around here, there's another one.

Now the Medicis were an interesting lot, immensely wealthy and powerful, but with a huge interest in the arts and the sciences. They were not just out hunting and jousting, as patrons they were creating museums full of fabulous art – Donatello, Della Robbio, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Giotto. They were also developing libraries of the most advanced learning of the day. They were responsible for creating the beautiful towers, churches, statues. Their legacy is everywhere in this city, the old town is a beautiful jewel of a place.

The cathedral is a wedding cake masterpiece of white, green and pink marble, with the huge campanile (bell tower) beside it, 400 steps up to the top. Infront a baptistery with a ceiling full of gold mosaic.

How did we decide where to stay tonight? The guy on reception at Ravenna (who speaks 5 languages and has an African parrot he has had for 27 years which speaks English) was very friendly and helpful. He was curious about our walk and wanted to read the blog, and says he has a blog himself (thetalkingparrot.com). Anyway, to cut a long story short, he got us a great price on the Best Western here, where we are now ensconced, happy as larry and feeling in the lap of luxury compared to some of the places we have stayed.

These interesting twists happen all the time, and we are never sure what our next few days will bring. After Florence we are back on the road and on the first night will be staying in the only place available at a suitable distance, a convent, one star (but that was all that was needed over Bethlehem...)

Florence 21 October

We set out today to have a tourist day around Florence. We decide not to see museums, but just to wander around the major sights and enjoy the city. Great decision. First big surprise – I found the sight I had remembered from Florence, the Piazza dei Segnoria, an open piazza with the Palazzo Vecchio, a particular colour of the buildings and a particular tower on the palace. There it was! I was so delighted that we had to take a squillion photos and go and have a ridiculously expensive coffee in the piazza to sit and stare at it for another half an hour.

We wander up to the fort on a hill at the top of the town, no tourists around, just steep little streets leading up to huge fort walls and down again with snippets of views of Tuscan hillsides. By then it is peak hour – it's hard to remember that people actually live in these towns and go about normal lives until you see them racing home from work. But there they are in their little cars, zipping up those cobblestoned streets.

Eating in our room tonight, we've bought a picnic, so easy in Italy – cheese, olives, bread, salad, pickled capsicum, bottle of wine.