Venice, Ravenna, and Bologna - WOW!!

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Note to regular readers who check the blog daily……the previous post about Ferrara was missing a few pictures.  I had forgotten to include some photos from the i-touch, so now there are more family pics of the cousins in Italy and of downtown Ferrara.  If you already read yesterday's post, and you didn't see a picture of the antipasto meal at Anna's, or the water in the castle moat, go back and scroll through for the new pictures today!!    :-)  And one more reminder….if you press Command + (plus sign), the blog pictures and the text get bigger, so it's easier to read!!  

And now for the rest of Italy!!  Well, O.K., it's the rest of what we saw on this trip anyway!  We have waaaayyyyy too many pictures to post, so even though this is a long post, it will actually just be a highlight reel of our travels for three days to three amazing Italian cities.  Each day we would buy round trip train tickets at the train station and head out on a day trip within an hour and a half of Ferrara.  

VENICE    (Tuesday)

Campo San Geremia (St. Jeremiah Square) was where we met the guide for our "Free Walking Tour of Venice" to start our day there, quite close to the train station. 

The tour took us through the Jewish Ghetto first - this is the oldest synagogue in Italy.  

Soon we had our first glimpse of the beautiful canals of Venice, as we walked over the bridges crossing the waterways serving as passage for tourists in gondolas as well as delivery boats filled with cartons.  

There was a break half-way through the tour for everyone to go buy some gelato at a nearby shop.  We didn't need any arm-twisting!!  

Some of the passageways between the buildings were incredibly narrow, but of course there have never been cars in Venice, and pedestrians don't need wide roads!  

Our first view of the Grand Canal was from the famous Rialto Bridge, filled with shops and many tourists behind us.

The Rialto Bridge     (Disclaimer:  this is not my photo - it's borrowed from the internet because we didn't have a good view of the bridge from our tour!!)

Just beyond the Rialto Bridge is this beautiful square with a 15th century 24-hour clock.  It's Chiesa di San Giacomo di Rialto, with a unique Gothic portico.

And finally, after our tour finished, we made our way to the one-and-only Piazza San Marco!  Unfortunately our volunteer photographer didn't quite get all of the famous clock in the picture.

The campanile on the Piazza.

The Doge's Palace, overlooking the waterfront.  

San Giorgio Maggiore, one of the islands seen from the waterfront near the Piazza.  We decided to go have lunch before going back to tour San Marco Cathedral, so we took a walk down the shoreline to a place Mary Ellen had suggested where we had, of course, pasta and a glass of wine!  

It must have been laundry day on this street!   I just thought it was an interesting scene of everyday life on a side-street not traveled by tourists.  

Then after lunch, we waited in line to visit the famous Saint Mark's Basillica. We were lucky because the line was shorter than it had been earlier, and it only took us about 15 minutes to get inside the doors.  

The intricate tile patterns on the floor never seemed to repeat.

But the mosaic tiled domes were breathtaking!  

The mosaics glittered with gold tiles and vivid colors. 

There are so many churches in Venice, and we stopped to see many that we passed by, including Santa Maria del Giglio.  It was built in the mid 1600's and has one of the finest Baroque facades in Venice.   

Our tour guide in the morning was terrific, and she offered one tip that we took advantage of.  The famous gondola rides cost 80 euros and up for a half-hour ride (over $100), which is way out of our price range, needless to say.  But, she told us about a few places where locals ride generic gondolas just to get across the Grand Canal where there's not a bridge.

So my romantic husband took me on a gondola ride on the Grand Canal in Venice after all!!  For 2 euros each, we had a nice ride across to the other side, for about 5 minutes total.  
And it was wonderful!!    :-)

The gondoliers didn't sing to us, but it was really fun actually being in a gondola, and the scenery on the Grand Canal was fabulous!!  

Santa Maria della Salute (Saint Mary of Health) is a minor basilica built after a plague killed more than a third of the population in Venice in 1631.  

The interior is just as spectacular as the exterior, with marble of many colors decorating the inlaid floor.  

The shape of the basilica is unusual too -- it's HUGE!!  

On the steps leading down into the Grand Canal in front of Santa Maria della Salute.

As we were winding our way through the city back towards the train station, we happened on this lute player in one little square.  

Click here for a very short video of the lute player…….
Venice Lute Player

 I titled this photo:  "Nap time for a gondolier"  
(The gondola we rode on wasn't quite this fancy though!)

The last time we crossed the Grand Canal was late in the afternoon, on the Ponte dell'Accademia, and the colors were so vivid in the bright sunlight.

RAVENNA   (Wednesday)

Mary Ellen suggested Ravenna as a destination, because it's one of her favorite cities due to its unique history and features.  It's small and compact enough to see most everything in a day, starting with San Giovanni Evangelista (St. John) just after we left the train station.  

This church was built in the 5th century, and original tiled floor sections have been preserved and are now displayed in the church. 

Massive interior that has been restored.

This is the Basilica of St. Apollinare Nuovo was built around 500 A.D.
Ravenna was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire for a period of time.

Ravenna is famous for its spectacular Byzantine mosaics, which are the finest outside of Istanbul, which is why Mary Ellen suggested we visit here.  This is the interior of the basilica with its superb mosaics.  

I'm always captivated by painted domes that look like a porthole to heaven, with God and the angels peering down on us here on earth!  

The Baptistry of Neon is a religious structure and the oldest monument in Ravenna.  It was built at the site of an old Roman bath at the end of the 4th century.  

The mosaic tiled dome in the baptistry.  

Soon it was time for lunch, and Mary Ellen had recommended piadina's, kind of like a pita sandwich type meal.  But this shop was out of them, so they suggested crescione, which they prepared in the style of a piadina for us.  They had meat, cheese, and tomato fillings - YUM!

I don't even know the name of this charming little square, but it was typical of places we walked through in Ravenna.  Sometimes we just look at each other and shake our heads in disbelief that we are really experiencing so many wonderful places in Europe!!  

This picture is a random shout-out to Beth and Lute, and their Hope College friends!!  We were walking by and noticed the sign, complete with orange paint above.    :-)  

The Basilica of San Vitale is considered to be one of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine art and architecture in western Europe.  It dates from the 6th century. 

As in the other Ravenna basilicas, the interior was massive and highly decorated with many mosaics.

These sliced and polished marble surfaces on all the columns were nature's 'art'.

We could see why Ravenna's mosaics are so famous - they are really impressive and like nothing we've ever seen.  (But of course we've never been to Istanbul!)

Early mosaic tiled floors.  

The octagonal architectural plan and the flying buttresses were really interesting designs. 

Out behind the basilica is the Roman era mausoleum of Galla Placidia, which is considered to have the earliest and best preserved mosaics in Ravenna.  

The colors of the mosaics here were the most vivid we saw, and because the dome was lower, we could see them better too.

Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River by John.  This famous mosaic is in the Arian Baptistery, seen in the next photo. 

The Arian Baptistry, built at the end of the 5th century.  Evidently a lot of people in Ravenna got baptized during that era????  There were lots of baptistry's anyway!!  

We had been to all of the major sites on the tourist map with two hours to go before our train back to Ferrara, except the most important historically and artistically significant basilica was outside of town about 8 km, and we didn't know how to get there and back. 

So I stepped up to the "Hop-on-Hop-off" bus driver just to ask where we could catch some kind of tourist bus out to see the Basilica of St. Apollinare in Classe (Classe is actually another town outside of Ravenna.)  And the tour guide told us they were headed out there right then with an empty bus, so we could just ride along for free!!   Sweet!  

This is a truly massive structure, built in the mid-6th century out in the middle of nowhere.  It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as are many of the other places we visited in Ravenna.  

The simple rectangular architectural style is in contrast to some of the other octagonal basilicas.  

The mosaics were amazing here too, with gold and bright colored tiles.  

Some of the original mosaic tiled floors, several feet below the current floor.

When the "Hop-on-Hop-off" bus dropped us off, they told us that we could catch a city bus back into Ravenna.  So, here we are on the local bus, and believe me, we were indeed the only tourists on board!!  

TIM!!!    :-)   

Back in Ferrara that night, Mary Ellen took us out to one her favorite restaurants, La Providenza, and we started out with their antipasto bar.  The flavors and variety were amazing and delicious!  Then we had pasta dishes and a special plate of fried veggies and fruits that were to die for!  

The two redheads after dinner!  The next day was our 32nd wedding anniversary, so this was an early celebration with Mary Ellen, which was so sweet of her.   :-)  

BOLOGNA  (Thursday)

It was supposed to rain on the day we went to Bologna, so Mary Ellen outfitted us with rain gear just in case.  It was chilly in the morning, so we were glad to wear the jackets.  

I have to admit that we don't know all the names of all the churches and museums we went to in Bologna, and though I could figure it all out with our tourist map and Google, I think I'll just let you experience Bologna the way we did.  We wandered around, map in hand, taking in the sights of the city and being overwhelmed by the architectural beauty around us.  

Every time we stepped into another big cathedral, we were in awe! 

Big palace on the main square.  

Statue of Neptune on the main square.

Palazzo d'Accursio, a palace on the Piazza Maggiore

This is the Basilica of San Petronio, the 15th largest church in the world.  It was started in Gothic style in 1390, and continued to be built for a couple centuries.  The main facade was not completed, so there was a contest to design it in the 1500's, but a single plan could never be agreed upon, so it remains unfinished even now!  In the museum inside, we saw many of the submitted architectural drawings, all of which looked better than this half-incomplete look!  

But the inside is truly magnificent in every way with the huge gothic vaults.

The museum was interesting too, and I especially enjoyed seeing the Gregorian chant books with their gold leaf decorations.  

We spent our wedding anniversary in Bologna this year!  Our anniversary lunch was marvelous - pasta and wine at a romantic outdoor table on a little side street.    :-)

We ordered two Bolognese specialties suggested by our waitress, and then we shared them half and half.  

Ferrara is the walled Medieval/Renaissance city, Venice is the city of canals and gondolas, Ravenna is the city of Byzantine architecture and mosaics, and Bologna seems to be the covered city.  Almost all the sidewalks are covered, so even if it had rained all day, which it didn't, we would have stayed quite dry!  

Well in a courtyard of Santo Stefano.  

Santo Stefano was another 'must-see' place recommend by our favorite tour planner, Mary Ellen!  The architecture is a conglomeration of many styles, and it's actually seven churches built from the 4th to the 13th centuries.  Fascinating!! 

The choir area behind the altar was made of gorgeous inlaid wood with incredibly detailed scenes. 

One of the churches is octagonal, and the mosaic brick work was unique. 

We loved walking down the column-lined, high, arched covered sidewalks!  For once, my volunteer photographer got this picture exactly how I wanted it, showing the arches overhead.    :-)  

We kept seeing young people wearing these crowns made of leaves, and a wide variety of other attire, all with entourages of friends.  We finally asked this young man what was going on, and it was graduation day, so this is a traditional headgear for grads.  (And Americans think mortarboards look silly!!)   He was going around singing for pennies!

We went into the courtyard of the faculty of law, and this young lady was with a much more conservative, yet just as joyful group of friends and family members.  

More arch-covered walkways in Bologna.  Each of the four cities we visited had such different atmospheres and architectural characteristics!!  

We just couldn't get enough of the architecture!

Inside a palace, now a museum.  

Tim with Carlo, Anna, and Alessandro, who came over to Mary Ellen's for a delicious supper our last night.  

With Micki and Mary Ellen after supper, waiting for our midnight train from Ferrara back to Vienna.  We had such a wonderful time with the cousins in Italy!!     :-)