Peace and quiet on Saturday

Saturday 7^th June

We have travelled today to a town called Ravenna. It is on the sea and was apparently once the sort of capital of the eastern roman empire. A small challenge to find our B&B – first loop we missed the street, second loop we found the street but could not access it from where we were, and third loop we were in. I think the B&B is a guy’s private apartment where he has converted 3 of the rooms to B&B accommodation. It is quite nice, comfortable, and central to the city of Ravenna.

Once we parked the car and unloaded the suitcases we headed off by foot into the town in search of lunch. We had also picked up a brochure in the B&B about mosaic tiled floors uncovered in the town so we headed there for a bit of variety from churches. It appears that they had been found when bulldozing the site for residential living.  At the Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra you can see the entire ground floor of a home that belonged to a high ranking court official. Each floor is a beautiful mosaic, and every room is different. There are geometric and floral patterns, as well as symbolic figures. These mosaics were absolutely stunning.

One of the UNESCO listed monuments.

Another of the churches.

This mosaic was titled something like 'The Good Shepherd'.

Just some of the mosaic flooring. Maybe an early quilt design?

We found Ravenna to be a lovely quiet town and worth stopping at. They boast that they have 8 UNESCO listed monuments (all churches) – we saw a few from the outside as we walked past but didn’t do a tour of any. Another thing we found in Ravenna is pushbikes – thousands of them. Unlike most other towns we have been to, Ravenna is flat, hence the bikes I guess.  Ravenna is also known as the place that Dante spent his last 20 years and where his tomb is located. It was a pretty hot day and too hot to be doing too much exploring so we didn’t visit the tomb either.

Looking back to another of the churches.

We have seen some lovely doors on our trip
 - this is just one of them.

Now we are back at the B&B catching up on the blog – and Rob is having a siesta. We have also spotted a laundromat just around the corner so might do the

washing after dinner. Tomorrow we are headed to Venice, before heading back west across Italy.