Ravenna

Interior of a monument in Ravenna

Why did I want to visit Ravenna? I’ve been asked that many times. It was one of the four capitals of the Roman Empire, at a time when it had four capitals; I have an enchanting book about Ravenna by Judith Herrin, which I  saw in several gift shops; I’ve listened to podcasts about Ravenna, and watched an art program about the mosaics here. Most buildings are built of brick, with quite unprepossessing exteriors, and yet there are these wonderful mosaics inside. One doesn’t know the artists’ names, and yet they display the most wonderful skill. They also give rise to many questions: how and why do portrayals differ of Jesus Christ and his mother? When did the Cross become elongated rather than being four sides of equal length? The Byzantine influence is very striking here. JD argues that the great cathedrals of England and France have stained glass windows, and especially a wonderful rose window: the basilicas here have mosaics and wonderful floor patterns: floors, walls and very high roofs.

Getting to Ravenna was a strange experience.  It’s not on the main rail line, although cruise ships stop at its port. We caught a Frecciarossa train from Venice to Ferrara, but then had to switch to a regional train, which was some way away.  The first train was quite luxurious, and there should have been 10 minutes in between trains, but our first train was a few minutes late, making it a scramble to catch the regional train. This train was quite full, and JD and I had to sit apart. I had hoped to see something of Ferrara, but that wasn’t possible.

We rode in the dark to Ravenna, stopping frequently. I hoped that our 3* hotel in Ravenna would be all right, and that Ravenna’s mosaics would live up to their promise. After all, I had insisted on coming here.

Ravenna was a bit of a shock at first! We had been used to walking in Venice without cars or bikes! Now we were navigating narrow streets with cars racing by, and without proper footpaths. But almost everything is built of brick, and there are no tall buildings. Houses often front onto the narrow street, but there’ll be a beautiful courtyard inside, although often the grass needs mowing. From what we’ve seen, the people here aren’t really into gardening at all.

Never mind, we reached our roomy hotel. We have a large bedroom, with large bathroom including shower and bidet, and an entrance hall separating the two. The bedroom has a couch. It’s all a bit dated, and there’s some odour of a cleaning material, but it seems fine. The main problem last night was it was far too warm! I think eventually JD managed to turn the heating down to 23 C.

We had a short rest then went out to a local deli and restaurant for dinner. The menu is in Italian, and far braver than Venetian ones which catered to tourists and were much the same everywhere there. I must confess it had a lot of local specialties, and I did not know enough Italian to understand them all.

JD had a glass of prosecco; he had cavatelli, which look a bit like tortellini and I had tagliatelle with meat sauce. There was beautiful bread to go with it.  The flavours were quite intense, not bland at all. JD’s pasta had cheese as well as meat in the filling.

The breakfast at this hotel is a bit of a challenge. They’re on a bit of a health and conservation drive, which is praiseworthy.  There were juices, cut fresh pineapple, and lots of cereals; cold meats and brie; and you can make toast although it’s not good if cooked too long. There is butter and several kinds of jam, although unlabelled. And there are croissants and cakes, and excellent coffee. We had two cups each. There are no tea-making facilities in our room, although there is a fridge!  It was a challenge to me that most of the breakfast foods were unlabelled. What looked like orange juice was in fact a health drink. I don’t think that we are part of the biking/hiking fraternity they’re looking for!

This morning we walked to see the San Vitali Basilica and the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. We also went shopping and bought a mosaic set for our daughter, a wee cup and some letters to form her name. The mosaics in San Vitale are amazing! And everything is so cheap here compared with Venice. And although there are visitors, there are far fewer people than in Venice. We got a ticket which entitled both of us to visit the sites of 5 famous works over 2 days for about €15.

We saw the museum, which was very interesting, and had lunch at a bar: coffee, fresh orange juice, a glass of prosecco, and ham and cheese toasties.

The next day we set out to see the other attractions that we had missed, after walking some way to find a laundrette. We saw a baptistery,  a palace with a chapel of St Andrew, and the  interior of the basilica of St Apollinare in Classe. What an amazing place! We also saw Dante’s tomb but did not go into his museum.

We had lunch at a café close to the Duomo, where they made us omelettes!  Delicious. Every restaurant we went to had large family groups enjoying themselves.

That night we went for dinner at nearby ristorante il gardina Ravenna. I had crumbed veal steak with patatini which turned out to be potato chips; JD had steak with not green peppers (a mistranslation!) but green peppercorn sauce! Truly delicious. We should have ordered salad. But for dolci I chose profiteroles, and when they didn’t have them I chose cheesecake with berries instead.

That night the All Blacks were to play Les Bleus in Paris, but we did not go to a pub to watch it – that was quite a long way away. The score was 30-29, to the French! That was our last night at the hotel. They had an 11am checkout, but would hold our baggage for us.

We spoke to the gentleman on the desk, who was very kind. He spoke about the rugby match, and about a cemetery in Ravenna where some New Zealanders who died in World War II are buried. I did not know that. He also talked about a Māori haka being done in the NZ Parliament, but the youngest member of Parliament, a young Māori woman. The news does penetrate, even here! And he congratulated me on coming to see the mosaics, and gave me two copies of a book about them, one for me and one for my friend who had also been here.

The Sunday we were to leave it was very cold, after fine, warm weather the previous days.  We were going to go to church, but JD had coughed during the night so we didn’t want to do that.  We walked with our luggage to the railway station, which was being done up: in the meantime, it was cold and draughty and had very limited seating. There was a McDonalds Café there, but we didn’t want to go there. It was full, anyway. There were very few restaurants open.

So we walked to a park, with yet more brick walls around it. There was a café in the park. They were very busy, but the kind person in charge let us go in, explaining that they did not serve lunch till 1 pm. No matter, we were just glad to sit down in the warm.

There was a large family group there who seemed to be having a buffet brunch; I was brought an espresso coffee, and JD a glass of prosecco. Then we were invited to order something to eat. Once again, the menu was confusing but I had spaghetti with cavalo nero and some kind pf creamy pumpkin sauce. Then we walked back to the railway station to wait for our train to Bologna.

You couldn’t use the bathroom at McDonalds without buying something to eat: I went to use the station’s bathroom, which had been done up and was quite luxurious. I paid one euro for the privilege.

The platform was cold and windy. Eventually the train came, and it was one of those complicated ones, where you entered the carriage and had to go up or down. It was very full, and running a bit late. We headed for Bologna, but the train stopped for five minutes due to a signal fault.

There should have been 20 minutes between trains at Bologna, but the railway station there turned out to be a nightmare. There were crowds of people, and our platform, 19, was a long way away from our regional train. We went down and down and down only to see our train pulling away just as we reached it.

We got a lift up three stories, and there were two customer desks: one for Italotreno, whom I had booked with, and the other with Trenitalia. We did not have to wait long, and guess what, more money solved the problem, getting us in Business Class in the quiet Zone in a train that went to Rome in just over half an hour.

JD found me a seat and then went off to buy something three stories up – more tissues, I think! That was scary. He eventually returned, and we found our way down three stories and then wondered whether we were after platform 18 or 19:  in our relief we forgot what we’d been told.

The train did come, and we got on. We had seats, but the people next to us did not bother to move their stuff or try to make us comfortable. And although this was a Quiet Zone, people kept talking on their mobile phones! Eventually we reached Rome, and the train took a very long time to stop.  But we were in Rome! Navigating the Termini Station was another challenge, although we’d been here before. It too is “in restoro”, of course, and is confusing.

JD decided we could walk to our hotel, which was, as they all are, only “about 11 minutes” walk away from the Termini. That’s true, but walking was a challenge since there were so many potholes in the footpaths.  We passed lots of restaurants, a good sign, and there was one very challenging pedestrian crossing.

We reached our hotel, another 3*!  They charged us €5 each per night, and no, breakfast was not included. I had thought it was. The lift was something else! It was an old style cage lift, although I did come to like it.  The hotel had previously been an apartment building, it seemed, so there was some separation between rooms. I did not feel bad about coughing here.

We had a good-sized room, on the fourth floor, with a window that opened, and an adequately sized bathroom with bidet and shower.  It had a wardrobe, desk and fridge, with a hot water jug but no teabags! Shower and towels were quite adequate, and there was a wardrobe.

We made sure the lift delays were not an issue for us, by allowing plenty of time to wait for it. We marvelled again at people with enormous luggage and wondered why they would stay here if they could afford such expensive-looking luggage. The reviews didn’t say anything about the shonky lift!

I’ve also written down some thoughts regarding politics.

I remain shocked and horrified at the outcome of the US presidential election.

With regard to Trump’s cabinet picks: I remember Brian Cox saying to his children in Succession, “You are not serious people”. It is hard to see the US  being further reduced to this kind of clown show, but they did it to themselves. And there’s enormous hypocrisy in complaining about the prices of eggs and gas, when the travel for Thanksgiving surpassed Thanksgiving travel in recent memory, and then there’s all the present giving, the “Black Friday” sales, and Christmas: it’s hard to believe these people are hard up, although millions still live in poverty, some with no sewage, and lead pipes, and breathe in chemical fumes; some powerful people seem to have disregard for the environment, even as they live through extreme heats events, to say nothing of storms and hurricanes.

Anyway, you haven’t just done it to yourselves, America, you do it to the rest of the world. We are all affected by this vote. And you had a good, honest, upright man in President Biden, who’s a human being, after all, but was a great American president.  How could you turn away from the good laws? The great economy? 

Trump’s cabinet picks are so awful, and there’s so many of them, that people are focusing on the dreadful Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary. But what about RFK Junior?  The man who would abandon vaccines, and research into new medicines?  Advances in medical technology are keeping both JD and me alive at present, and hopefully for some time to come.  When I had an SAH back in September 2011, the techniques that kept me alive were only developed in the 1990’s, I think. If this had happened when my children were small, I would have been a vegetable, had I lived. Who voted for RFK Jnr?  Nobody.

Then there’s the complete disregard of the co-called law, where not only could Trump not be prosecuted for the many terrible things he has done, but some, like Peter Navarro, who actually were prosecuted, are being brought back into the administration. Charlie Kushner, whom Trump pardoned, even though he had served prison time for his dreadful crimes, is to be US Ambassador to France. The good people of France don’t deserve that, I think.

The Americans can do their own crazy thing, of course, but you can’t help encountering them: JD and I met many on our recent trip overseas.  While most avoided getting into conversation with us (a sense of shame, perhaps?), others displayed that annoying sense of entitlement that one finds so irritating. The American influence is pervasive in larger Italian cities, where a “Long black” coffee is assumed to be an Americano, and waffle makers reign supreme. When we travel, we try to adopt the customs of the local people, and accept that things won’t be just like home. That’s one of the joys of travel! In France, Spain or Italy, one has orange juice, a croissant and coffee. Merveilleux!

Back in New Zealand, the WCC have voted to demolish the City to Sea Bridge, rather than fixing it. Should a major earthquake happen to affect the bridge, the people who happen to be on it would not have anything fall on them, Traffic underneath might be affected, but this might be a few cars.  So even if there are problems, let’s keep the bridge for now, Apparently the Michael Fowler Centre is likely to be demolished, as well.  It’s been a good venue for many things – concerts, even opera, and a Labour Party rally. The acoustics weren’t great to start with, but now they’ve been fixed. Seating is tight, but you know it will be tight.

While overseas I visited Canterbury Cathedral, Durham Cathedral, the St Mark Basilica in Venice, the famous Basilica on Torcello, and many religious sites in Ravenna. I saw many brick buildings. I rejoiced in the fact that none of them was considered to be “earthquake prone”.  This earthquake-focus in Wellington is just so annoying, as buildings are demolished, or strengthened, then strengthened again, and many apartment owners cannot sell and cannot afford to do whatever strengthening is required. So here we not only don’t have really old stuff, what we do have all need fixing. What a world we inhabit here.

That’s it for now. Next, Roma!  Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.