Ravenna & Bologna

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Hello Blog People,

    I'm so sorry that I'm far behind on my entries. But I promise that the upcoming posts will be super long and exciting because I have been on some adventures recently. First, I will talk about a school trip I went on a few weeks ago to Ravenna and Bologna. 

    I didn't know much about Ravenna before we visited. We covered it in our Fine Art and Monuments class, but that was a while ago. We drove there on the bus and after about 2 hours we made it into town. We walked from the bus stop to our first stop: The Basilica of San Vitale. This church was ABSOLUTELY STUNNING! First off, it was the first church built for Christianity. Most of the other first churches were originally pagan churches and they were turned into Christian ones. But this was one of the first churches BUILT for Christianity. You walk in and the whole ceiling is COVERED in mosaics. That is what Ravenna is famous for. It was so crazy to walk into this church and just see colors and pictures everywhere. I will attach pictures below, but it's so much better in person. 

The whole church is also in a Byzantine style, not only in the mosaics but in the architecture too. Normally the basilicas and churches we go to are in the normal Catholic cross shape. But this one is more octagonal and has more natural shapes in it. It was also interesting to see the iconography of the biblical characters in the mosaics. Looking at all the pictures and small details that were accomplished by the mosaics is inspiring and almost unimaginable. I could have stared at the ceilings forever. 

After we walked in the Basilica we went to the nearby Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Again, we were surrounded by mosaics on the ceilings depicting a starry night sky. The whole ceiling was blue with either sparkles stars or ornate designs. This building was smaller, so we had to take turns looking at it, but it was beautiful. 

We then walked to the Baptistery of Neon to look at some more mosaics. Here we not only saw lots of pictures in the mosaics, but also statues and engravings. There were also gold swirls and art designs on most of the arches inside the baptistry that were really captivating. My favorite was right in the center of the ceiling and it showed the moment Jesus was baptized and the Holy Spirit came from heaven as a dove. The picture is just so clear if you know the story, and it was a super appropriate choice for this centerpiece. 

After we saw all the famous mosaics we were given permission to go out for lunch. I got my normal trip lunch; a basic Margarita pizza is always the way to go. We went to a cute place called Babaleus. The restaurant was gracious enough to take our big party of 13 and the food was ready really quick. And it was delicious! 

I mentioned that we were going to Bologna, but it was really just a walk through. We were dropped off on one side of the city and Antonietta  led us on a quick walk through the city. We took a 20-ish minute stop to look at the Bologna duomo. I'm glad we got to go for two reasons. Number 1: we were taught that there is a latitudinal line that goes right through the church. That's just a cool random fact. But reason number 2: This duomo is different from ALL the other ones I've seen. The general color scheme on the inside was a lot lighter than any other I had seen before. The outside was not pretty. The top part of the facade looked like it was made of wood. And it was really really tall inside. The pillars were huge and there was a lot of space. It was just very different.

After walking around the duomo and the nearby piazza, we kept walking to the train station. We made it was plenty of time for our bus. Then we rode back to the school for another hour and got back in time for dinner. 

This was a very chill trip compared to some other trips we have gone on. But it was nice to explore a town close to Florence. I am really glad I got to see the mosaics in person. If you get the chance, I would recommend taking a trip to Ravenna. 

The next post will be about Barcelona, so be looking for that. Thank you for reading. Pictures of this trip will be down below. 

Ciao, 

    Ellie 

The basilica

Basilica ceiling


Mosaic floor close up

Mausoleum

Baptistry ceiling

The whole baptistry

LUNCH

Bologna Duomo

The latitude line :)


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