Ravenna has been on my list of places to see for years now and so, since I was in Italy for longer than my standard 8 days I decided to check it off the list. I was not disappointed; I thoroughly enjoyed my entire stay there and probably saw everything there is to see, with the exception of one church that was closed for renovation.
My journey started by train from Rome to Bologna on the Italian Eurostar. From there according to my ticket I was supposed to take something called "Eurostar Link" to Ravenna. I assumed this was a train of some kind.
I assumed wrong.
I kept looking for a train to Ravenna on the departure board but as my departure time approached nothing appeared, so I went up to the train station info desk.
"Quale binario per questo treno?" I asked the guy, showing him my ticket.
He replied in English (dammit) that it was not a train at all, it was a "big green bus outside." I went outside and saw the big green and white bus to my left. I walked up - the driver was sitting in his seat but there wasn't another soul on board.
I asked him if he spoke English, which he did, so I showed him my ticket and asked him if this was the right bus. It was. I was grateful - it was 5 minutes after the time I was supposed to have caught it.
He motioned for me to get on, so I did and asked him, "Does this bus take me to Ravenna or to another train station?" His reply: "The train station." So, I assumed I was going to be bussed to another train station in Bologna.
I assumed wrong.
He fired up the machine, we pulled out of the piazza in front of Bologna Centrale and headed off through town. Eventually we got onto the autostrada. I was a little nervous since it seemed that we were going some roundabout circumferential way around the city but hey, who am I to judge? In Italy, as I learned many years ago, you must be flexible!
Still watchng the highway I finally realized what was happening - I was in my own personal 10 ton limo being driven to Ravenna. The ES link was this bus. I realized this after we diverted from one highway to another with the sign "Ravenna" and the arrow pointing into our lane. This is why I am a genius, folks. I relaxed and chuckled to myself - it was great but damn it was inefficient. To celebrate my revelation I text messaged a friend - "Am on the bus to Ravenna" - and hoped the details would be deduced from that to-the-point sentence.
Eventually we exited the autostrada, drove through the newer outlying part of Ravenna and pulled up in front of the train station.
He was right, he was taking me to another train station - Ravenna's!
The earliest settlement in the area consisted of houses on poles, very much like how Venice started (a few hundred years later). Later, as the Romans conquered the peninsula, it was brought into the Roman fold. Near Ravenna was where Julius Caesar took his troops and crossed the Rubicon (a river whose location and identity is now lost) prior to his march on Rome and his short-lived reign as the first emperor in 49 BC.
Later, Augustus created a naval harbor near the town now called Classe. Trajan built an aqueduct for the city in the 70's (not "the '70's") CE. Augustus' harbor was operational for a few centuries but then a period of decline allowed the harbor to silt up (and today Ravenna is a few kms from the sea itself, proof - as if it were necessary - that nothing is ever constant in this world).
Honorius made it the capital of the Western Roman Empire by default in 409 because he preferred to hang out there rather than face the Ostrogoth invasion and sacking of Rome. What a guy. The year 476 saw the final curtain fall on the Western Roman Empire and Ostrogothic rule was the norm for about 60 years.
In 535, the Byzantine emperor Justinian invaded the peninsula and defeated the Ostrogoths. Ravenna once again became the seat of the Western Roman Empire and thus became endowed with a series of churches and baptisteries decorated with the most beautiful Byzantine mosaics anywhere outside Constantinople. It is here, in San Vitale, that the famous mosaic images of Justinian and Theodora were created and preserved through to today. Ravenna's status would remain unchanged for about 200 years, when it fell to the Lombardys in the early 8th century.
Ravenna eventually came under the control of Venice. The Venetians built a large castel fort on the edge of town near the coast. What I found most amusing was that it was not heavily fortified to defend invasiotn from teh sea, it was more heavily fortified on the side facing the town. The Venetians were more afraid of an uprising from the town than they were from a sea invader.
Later, in the 16th century, it became home for Dante, the father of the modern Italian language. His tomb is in town and the mound of dirt the locals piled on top of his sarcophagous to protect it from damage during WWII is also still there, in the garden next to his tomb. It even has a plaque on it commemorating the fact that it is indeed the mound of dirt in question. Italians love thir monuments, don't they?
Ravenna has been spending a lot of money on archaeological digging the last decade; one of the best preserved near-complete Roman floors anywhere is there; The House of Stone Carpets. The remains of a large house, probably of an important late Empire Era resident was uncovered a few years ago, a roof contructed over the find and the surface returned to it's original use. Today you can enter it from a Baroque era church and walk down a few steps to see the 3000 sq foot preserved floors. A fascinating exibit both on the lives of the ancients and modern acheaological techniques. They have to be innovative because they not only want to uncover lost treasures and preserve them but they have to live with them, too.
The Byzantine sites are all UN World heritage registered places and in most cases are spectacular, truly.
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