Ravenna

Maybe there were only 2 people at the hotel in Cervia, because at breakfast there were only two placemats at one table. I ate breakfast with a young German guy in a tie who was there on business. He spoke good English, and asked me about my trip.

I strolled back to the train station about 10h30, and the next train anywhere was north to Ravenna at 13h00. So I went back into town with my luggage, bought a Bulova watch for 190 Euro ( the shopkeeper knew very basic English ), and had lunch at a cafe where I pulled out my laptop and played Scrabble to kill time.

It was the second day of inter-city travel at midday, and it seemed to be working well, so I decided to stay in Ravenna, see as much as I can in 3 daylight hours, and do a similar midday trip to Bologna tomorrow. There were two hotels between the train tracks and the busy street, but that seemed too noisy, so I just boldly strolled up a street with my luggage until I saw a sign for another 3-star hotel, and it seems fine. Quiet shy clerk, and decor reminiscent of extremely simple 50's style. There might be 6-12 people here tonight.

I was trying to remember why I'd even heard of Ravenna. As you can tell, I spent so much time researching the BCDragoons in WW2 that I did not consult any tourist guides. I vaguely thought that Ravenna was an old Roman town so there might be Roman ruins to see. Well that wasn't really right. Ravenna is one of the first really Christian towns, and they are known for the incredible mosaic art in the EXTREMELY old basilicas. When I mean old, I mean 4th to 6th century AD. I was so impressed, I bought a T-shirt. I'm not sure if the mosaics themselves are that old.

Had dinner at a nearby restaurant that the hotel clerk recommended. I didn't bother asking the meanings of the pastas, but from yesterday I understood that there is normally 2 courses (primi and seconde), and that red wine was vino rosse or rossi. Got a quarter litre of wine, a yummy 6 cm spirally pasta with oil and tiny spinach pieces, and a pizza for my seconde. It was a pizzeria and you see the domed oven with fire in it when you enter the restaurant. After dinner it was still +12 C so I went back into the old town to see if it livened up at night like Pesaro and Cervia did. But no! The place was absolutely dead! Just the odd middle-aged person walking or on bike. It was almost like there was some sort of curfew. Then I realized that there were no bars at all in the old town. Weird.

The only war memorial I found was the usual plaque listing the Italian war dead from the town itself, like I also saw in Cervia and Tavullia actually. I did note during the train ride up from Cervia that there were considerable little canals with deliberate grassy banks, which meshes with the Sinews of Steel story about the tanks getting slowed down by many canal crossings.