Florence to Ravenna mosaic trip?

Hello BarbaraGail, and welcome to the forum,

When is your trip? This is normally a pretty straightforward train Florence to Bologna and then Bologna to Ravenna and the biggest issue is that fast trains come in on lower level 3 and you need to make your way up to the surface for local trains and vice versa. This trip would take about 2.5 hours using the fast train to Bologna and then the regular train to Ravenna.

But there is scheduled work at Florence train station off and on this year so if you check schedules now you'll get some really weird results. As long as your dates don't run into track closures this is pretty straightforward. The time to drive or take the train from Bologna to Ravenna is about the same unless there's traffic.

Have a great trip,
=Tod

day trip or overnight from Florence to visit the Ravenna

JMO but 2.5 hours each way is too far as a day trip. Try to stay overnight in Ravenna- it's a lovely town

It took me two full days of aggressive sightseeing to cover all the mosaics and art museums in Ravenna. I had a bit of time to walk around the attractive historic center but not enough to go to the Classis historical museum out in Classe, even though I was very near it when visiting Sant'Appolinare in Classe.

People not as fanatical as I am about mosaics can and do make shorter trips to Ravenna, but if you can spare the time to spend at least one night there, i don't think you'll regret it.

Thanks for the ideas. An overnight it will be.
Does anyone know a good guide who can help us make the most of our visit? I'm thinking of someone who could pick us up in Bologna or Ravenna and take us from site to site.
Or am I overthinking this? Are the main sites close enough to cover with a good guidebook and comfortable shoes?

Except for Sant'Appolinare in Classe (a short train or bus ride from Ravenna), the main mosaic sites are walkable if you don't have mobility issues.

The official website covering most of the key mosaic sites in Ravenna (where you can buy your tickets) has a downloadable map. The numbers indicate the locations of the places covered by the combo ticket. There are some other sites of interest to mosaic lovers. Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra is pretty near San Vitale. The Arian Baptistery is a few blocks north of Sant'Appolinare Nuovo. The Cripta Rasponi is on Piazza San Francesco, with the Museo TAMO (history of mosaics) about two blocks farther south. Ravenna is basically flat, so walking is relatively easy.

https://www.ravennamosaici.it/en/entrance-time-and-prices/

If you want to know precise walking distances, you can use Google Maps.

@acraven I just made a post to ask about the multi ticket. I get the impression that you need to make a scheduled spot even with the multi ticket..can you tell me a little about this ? Or do you simply have the multi ticket and show it at each entrance ? It seems more complicated on the site but I could not find detailed explanations.
Also, 3/25/26 is a special Dantedi..celebrating Dante. Tickets are still abundant, but do you have any idea if it is a nice day to arrive or better to go a different day ? Will be taking the train from Bolgna.
Thank you so much !
Lisa

Our (DH and I) Fall 2025 trip report here that includes Ravenna: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/18-days-in-the-dolomites-rome-and-in-between has a reference for private guide Sylvia Giogoli. Sylvia was organized, extremely knowledgeable, and is from Ravenna. She was right on time to meet us. She's upbeat and energetic and added so much to our enjoyment of the mosaics. For a small extra fee she drove us to Theodoric's tomb, which is outskirts Ravenna but a little far to walk. And she also drove us to the St Appolinare basilica in Classe. She may have the flexibility to meet your needs. She also runs a bnb very close to Galla Placidia. We didn't stay there so can't comment on that.

I think we started the guided tour with Sylvia at 9:30 and finished by maybe 2-3:00, including an hour for lunch. Except for the two car trips mentioned above, we walked the whole route with Sylvia so that's doable if visiting in an efficient order. We also visited Classis Ravenna – Museum of the City and the Territory a.k.a. Museo della Città e del Territorio in Classe the day before on our own. I enjoyed the museum because it provided even more political and economic context about Ravenna but I think many people skip it due to time constraints. So it would be possible to see all of the main sites in Ravenna and the St Appolinare in Classe in one efficient day with some time left over.

The travel time between cities makes it a longer day, however. We were traveling by train. I didn't see a direct route or 100% high speed train route from Ravenna to Florence. There are Regionale trains between Ravenna and Bologna (55 minutes for us but varies), but then another 40 minutes by high speed, direct train (Frecciarossa) from Bologna to Florence. And some time needs to be allowed for transferring trains in Bologna. The Bologna Centrale station is laid out pretty well and not large, but we found most regional trains ran about 15 minutes late during our time in Italy so I wouldn't schedule tightly.

Grazie Mille all, this is super helpful information!

I'd just like to add that we will be in Italy from 3/19-4/3 and can't wait to return to Florence ..but after careful thought, we are using Bologna as our hub, taking the fast train to Florence for 2 day trips, allowing a easier day trip to Ravenna and also to the West for a day in Parma/Modena. It was thinking out of the box, we adore Florence but late March we will not need to spend too much late night time there, so I felt parking ourselves for a week in Bologna, saving on multiple check ins and loss of the day settling into another city, was a good use of time., Now we will fly into Milan, right to Bologna for 7 nights, then to Venice for 3 nights and back to Milan for 4, we fly in & out of Milan. (we were in Rome & Tuscan hill towns last visit)