Ravenna 1

the covered market

inside the market

Olives and strawberries, ugh.. who eats that? Ashley, she eats olives with everything, 2 years ago, she ate olives with 1/2 a pound of freshly made nougat in Amsterdam.

The plan was to go to Verona but at the train station in Bologna, I decided on Ravenna because it was closer. Seeing Ravenna today, a nice sleepy town, lots of old people and young families, lots of bikes, it is hard to envision a place, in its heyday, was as important as Rome. When it was dangerous in Rome during the sacking of it by the Barbarians, the Roman emperors did move their administrations to Ravenna, in its heyday, an important part of the Byzantium Empire. It is just like being in Granada, Spain, which today is another pretty town in Spain, it was hard to imagine that that was the seat of the Moorish government and later Isabella and Ferdinand ruled from there. The Alhambra was where it all happened, just like San Vitale in Ravenna which we will visit in the next posting. That's the romance of Europe, one has to dig deeper when one visits, there are so many layers of history piled on top of each other. Will I ever get tired of visiting it? I don't think so.

On a different note, I visited a few blogs last week and found some gorgeous ones. I left a comment on one of them and they reciprocated.

On the way from the train station in Ravenna, we passed by this church. I went in to pray as I often do in churches in Europe. The girls wanted to know what I prayed about, I said, I always pray that I'll be able to continue to travel and see all these marvelous places, that I'll be able to share these experiences with them, take them with me and for loved ones at home who are worried about us. That's Europe, the age of faith has left us many churches, beautiful ones like San Vitale which we will visit in the next posting. For this I'm truly grateful.