Ravenna

For some reason the books I thought I had downloaded on my Kindle app are not showing up unless I am connected to the internet, so I am having to go around without the aid of a guidebook at hand during the day. I am making some notes on what I want to see and taking that along at present, since my day in Padua was a little less fruitful from a comprehensive touring perspective.

Today I am visiting Ravenna, which is famous for its Byzantine mosaics. Ravenna was at one time the capital of Italy as well. I arrived in Ravenna and looked for the Tourist Information (TI) desk in the train station, which was non-existent. For some reason the TI is all the way on the oppposite side of town from the train station. So I decided to leave the station and start walking in whatever direction appeared the busiest. Across from the train station I spotted a map placard and decided to consult it for directions. When I got to it, there were 2 men staring at it, pointing and discussing it. I asked them if they spoke English and they replied "a little". So I asked them if they were going to see the mosaics and one of them said yes, we are ONLY going to 2-3 of them. I said "Good, I'm going to follow you." They didn't protest nor cheer at this announcement but they said OK and off we went.

Along the way I learned that they were from El Salvador but had been living in Rome for 6 years and 1.5 years. The older of the two (Fabio) was a former musician (guitarist) and was now working at a hotel and was also a tour guide for Spanish tourists. The younger guy (Alejandro) was a photography student. What providence! I was now with people who could instruct and lead me in multiple ways. Oh, and they had Google maps! So we made our way to the 1st church of mosaics. We got there and learned that the ticket office was across the street and I announced to them that I was going to pay their tickets and in return they would lead me around. They looked at each other quizzically and decided to agree and that's what we did. So it turns out that Fabio and Alejandro ended up seeing all 5 churches of mosaics and made a new American friend. Alejandro is not aware of this yet but he's also going to take me on a photo tour of Rome once I get there- LOL!!! He showed me some of his photos, which I thought were really good.

The mosaics were gorgeous and I wish my pictures would remotely do them justice but they are sadly lacking. The churches were dimly illuminated and the mosaics were very large, so it wasn't the best of photography conditions. That said, I am sure you can fine some great pictures online if seeing them is of interest to you. The mosaics are made out of 1,000's of colored "tesserae" or tiles about the size of your thumbnail and are placed tightly together with barely any space between one another. The final result looks much like a tapestry hanging on a wall. Some of the floors were also decorated with larger mosaic tiles, looking like area rugs had been placed on them.

After we saw all the mosaics Fabio and Alejandro returned to Bologna via train and I walked around Ravenna a bit more and then returned to Bologna as well.

When I arrived in Bologna I decided to try and exchange some money, since they couldn't do that at my hotel. I went to 2 hotels near the train station and neither of them would exchange money and evidently hotels in Italy do not offer this service. I tried a bank but, on top of their exchange rate, they had a 40 euro commission, which seemed excessive. While I knew they wouldn't be the best place, I also looked into an exchange booth at the train station. They had the worst exchange rate (as expected) PLUS charged a 19% commission on top of it, so I said forget it. Someone had told me the post office was the best place to exchange money, so I found one located halfway across town and walked there. Lo and behold they offered a fair exchange rate and a 6 euro commission fee, so mission accomplished. Seemed like a strange place to exchange money but whatever.Read more