It was another long, yet easy travel day following the Adriatic coast way up north to Ravenna. It’s probably not one of Italy’s more famous cities, but perhaps it should be. For most of the 5th to 7th centuries, around three hundred years, while the rest of the empire was falling apart, Ravenna was the capital of western Rome and after that, the capital of the Ostrogoth kingdom. Today Ravenna is most well known as the mosaic capital of Italy. Scattered around town in a handful of churches and baptistries are some of the world’s best early Christian mosaics.

I started with the Mausoleo di Galla Placidia (above), which has the oldest mosaics in Ravenna dating back to around 430 AD. This and the Basilica di San Vitale (below) were maybe the most impressive overall. Unfortunately, I kind of felt like I had to rush through these first couple and wasn’t really able to take it all in because of timed tickets. Luckily I was able to relax and take my time after that.

As you may have noticed, the mosaics are largely wall and ceiling decoration, but that doesn’t mean the floors were left out. Don’t forget to look down.

Also interestingly, as beautiful and detailed as these places are on the inside, they were remarkably plain on the outside. Just simple red brick churches with no indication of the dazzling artistry inside.

The Battistero Neoniano isn’t anymore interesting on the outside than the others, but it is Ravenna’s oldest existing building. It was built over a Roman bath complex in the 4th century. The mosaic ceiling was added about a hundred years later.

I admit, after a while in a country like Italy even I can start to lose the ‘wow’ factor in some of these churches. Ravenna’s churches really are unique though and I just love ancient mosaic art for some reason. Luckily, though, there are a few other things to see here too, like the Porta Adriana, Ravenna’s medieval city gate. There’s also the occasional baroque oddity if you’re paying attention.

I always end up walking through Piazza del Popolo at the end of the day too, since it’s right by my hotel and also where most of the good restaurants in town are. It’s pretty much the center of all activity in Ravenna.

Ravenna also has two really good museums. Both have a lot of mosaics, but that’s not all. Ravenna’s National Museum had a lot of really amazing stuff spanning many centuries, from Roman times to medieval times.

The show stopper in the Museo Arcivescovile, in the Archiepiscopal Palace, is the really well preserved 5th century Capella di Sant’Andrea. The details they are able to portray with some of these mosaics is astounding!

My favorite piece at the Museo Arcivescovile, however, was this 6th century, nearly one hundred year lunar calendar carved into marble. I can’t make sense of anything on it myself, but I know it’s awesome!

Right on track with Italy’s theme of not being able to dig anywhere or build anything without first doing archeological excavations, underneath Chiesa di Sant’Eufemia they found mosaic flooring from a 6th century Roman Palace, the Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra. Of course they did!

Saint Apollinaris is the patron saint of Ravenna so there are two basilicas here devoted to him, one in Ravenna and one in nearby Classe. Saint Apollinaris is also the patron saint of gout, epilepsy, and venereal diseases, so the region is safe from those apparently.

Apparently, not every Christian throughout history has loved these mosaics. Pope Gregory the Great in the late 6th century tried to have the mosaics blackened because he thought they were too distracting. Luckily, that never happened.

I mentioned earlier in the post about this being the Ostrogoth capital as well. I really don’t know much of anything about the Ostrogoth kingdom, but the Tomb of the Ostrogoth king Teodorico is at the north end of town. The outside is really impressive, but it’s basically just a shell now as the inside is empty. Right down the street from that are the remains of the 15th century castle, Rocca Brancaleone, which is now a public park. The original lion and Madonna with child carvings from that time are still attached.

Ironically, the Basilica di Santa Maria in Porto, has no mosaics or is of any interest to tourists at all, but I discovered it while walking around and thought that facade was incredible.

Perhaps Italy’s most famous medieval poet, Dante, was born in Florence, but spent his later years here in Ravenna admiring the very same mosaics that I am, and he eventually died here in the 14th century. His remains have been moved around several times since his death, including being hidden to protect them during WWII. Now they rest here in this mausoleum.

My favorite museum in Ravenna turned out to be Tutta l’Avventura del Mosaico, All the Adventure of Mosaic. The overly dramatic name aside, this was really a phenomenal museum. Not only did they have some amazing ancient mosaics, they also had some modern ones based on Dante’s works, and explanations about how mosaics were made. It was really interesting! And, it’s all inside the former Chiesa di San Nicolò which has some beautiful remaining frescoes.

Museo TAMO also had an exhibit of copies of some mosaics portraying scenes from the fourth crusade in the very early 13th century. One of the signs mentioned that the originals were at San Giovanni Evangelista, so guess where I went? That’s right, straight to San Giovanni Evangelista to check out the originals. The collection there was really impressive, and it wasn’t mentioned in any of my research which is downright criminal!

An easy quick train ride took me south to Rimini for a nice day trip. Rimini is mostly an hedonistic beach resort town during the summer months, but just a bit inland to the city center hides some historic treasures which are much more my speed.

I wouldn’t call Rimini’s beach pretty, but it is a beach, and it probably looks like spring break here in the summer. This time of year it’s pretty quiet though. I started by walking through Borgo San Giuliano, Rimini’s old fishing quarter. Then I passed over the Roman Ponte di Tiberio, built in 21 AD, and made my way past the 15th century Castel Sismondo.

Now securely in the historic district of Rimini, the primary reason for coming here was to see Domus del Chirurgo. It seems while digging Piazza Luigi Ferrari, they stumbled upon an ancient Roman villa. Typical Italy! Anyway, they believe the villa belonged to a physician due to some evidence that one of the rooms was used for surgical procedures and also due to the largest find of Roman era surgical instruments ever found. Awesome! First, the site.

The surgical instruments, along with a bunch of other artifacts found at the site are next door in the Museo della Città.

There were also a lot of really amazing mosaics at the museum. Unfortunately, they closed earlier than I thought due to their winter hours, so I only had about 45 minutes to run through. It was a whirlwind, yet worthwhile visit.

After getting my mosaic fix, I explored the rest of Rimini’s small historic center before heading back to Ravenna. I also ate way too much Piadina, it’s like a panini, but with a flat bread and fried. Yum! I had one in Ravenna, but it didn’t quite fill me up, so I got two in Rimini. The problem was the piadinas I got in Rimini were huge! I was so full I had to skip dinner.

Finally, the Arco di Augusto, commissioned by Emperor Augustus in 27 BC is incredibly, still standing. It once marked the end of the Via Flaminia, the road between Rimini and Rome.

Holy Crap… I’m in San Marino!!!

This next day trip from Ravenna is a bit unusual. Basically I took a day to visit one city, which is basically just a really big castle complex. This castle complex city, however, just happens to be the capital of San Marino, a completely sovereign micro nation locked within Italy.

San Marino is the last remaining hold out from Italy’s city-state period. Its the world’s fifth smallest country at only 23.5 square miles and a population of almost 34,000 people. As tiny as this country is, it’s also interestingly the world’s oldest republic, established in 301 AD. Who knew? Not me!

San Marino has spread out a little bit, but the heart of it all is in Valdragone, the capital, which is basically a big castle complex atop Monte Titano. It’s very distinctive for it’s iconic three towers seen in drawings and written about since the middle ages. The three towers show up in the country’s coat of arms, on the flag, and in all of my pics since I hiked to all of them.

It wasn’t a long or difficult hike, but definitely a pretty one that took me past all three of the famous towers. I did them backwards, so I first passed by the smallest of the bunch, Montale Tower.

All the towers stretch across the ridge of Monte Titano and the second tower, Cesta Tower, sits on the peak, San Marino’s highest point at a whopping 2,480ft.

The Guaita Tower is more than just a tower, it’s more like a mini castle. It was used as a prison for a really long time and as recently as 1975. There’s some recovered 19th century prisoner graffiti in one of the cells.

Other than the towers San Marino is admittedly a little short on sites. It’s not so much what you see in San Marino as it is what you see from San Marino. The views are just incredible!

After visiting the towers I started walking the streets, Got a piadina for lunch (only one this time), and checked the tiny State Museum. The streets here are really cool, lots of medieval architecture, random stairs that lead to castle ramparts and viewpoints, twists, turns, and lots of steep ups and downs. The streets are almost one on top of the other here.

The Piazza della Libertà is probably what would be considered the central square. That building to the left is where the government seat is. I think most of the population lives in the other cities down the mountain and that’s where most of the day to day stuff happens. Up here, aside from the views it’s mostly restaurants and shopping.

There’s also a handful of really wierd museums. There’s a museum of medieval torture, museum of curiosities, and a vampire museum. They all seemed like tourist trap Ripley’s believe it or not type museums though.

San Marino was definitely a unique kind of day trip, and a unique kind of country. I couldn’t pass up going and adding another country to my list and another flag to my collection though. On the way back down I snapped a quick pic of the main tower from the bottom, or almost the bottom.

Anyway, that’s gonna be it for this post. It’s been a very busy few days! My next stop is just a short hop away. It’ll be a quick, but busy one, so don’t go too far…