Day 12 - Ravenna

Ravenna is most famous for its mosaics, and although many italian cities make that claim there is some pretty impressive stuff here... but... for me.. I'm not really into going into some massive monument to see a whole heap of intricately constructed objects places so far from you that you cant appreciate their intricasy or the efforts of the craftsmen. One of the new sites is the Domus dei tappeti di pietro, which was a site unearthed during a mundane demolition, this exposed roughly 50x20m of beautiful mosaic work including some murals, mix of greek and roman influences but the sheer geometry of it is stupfying, if you are going to Ravenna in the next few months be sure to check it out... it's not on the tourist maps as yet as it only opened a few months ago... everything else is churches.

The city being near the coast is flat and easy to get around, its paved streets have a smooth section in the centre which i quickly realised... mi scusa signora,.. is for people riding bikes... it was only after 5 hours of walking around that we discovered that there were bikes for tourists available for free... probably a good thing i didnt see it... I'd be a statistic.

On the way to ravenna we paused at S.Apollinaro in classe, impressive church again... yeah ,... mosaics... but there was a first communion service going on which was great to see,.. kids on the big stage with the padre, proud parents watching priests asking kids questions about their faith and simple bible quizzes and the kids answering proudly or shyly turning away from the mass and whispering their answer into the priests ear... i got to tell off a german who was using a flash camera, everyone loved me.... well aside from the tourist... but i had a shirt on and looked impressive.

On the minibus ride on the way back I discovered exactly how sore my ass can get .. and also discussed the intricacies of the german and italian recycling programs with my class mate Rupi... man those germans know how to party.