My next plan was to visit Helsinki and Tallinn with a friend in late summer, but those plans foundered as we discovered the unappealing, multi-leg flight options. I wanted to go somewhere, so I signed up for another Backroads trip--October hiking in Slovenia. To limit the risk of delays hooking up with the group, I bolted a few extra days in Italy on the front. I've bolded the highlights throughout!
Day 0. Amtrak to Newark, United flight to Venice. Day 1. Arrived in Venice and took a bus to Venice Mestre station. Per good advice on this forum, the next leg was to Ferrara--where one of the elevators wasn't working. A young man with an unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth seized my heavy suitcase and wordlessly whisked it up to the platform, for which I was very grateful in my grogginess. At Ferrara I switched to a slower local train to Ravenna. My hotel, Al Battistero, was a short walk from the station and I arrived to store my luggage there around 2pm. On my first day, my main goal is usually to just maintain consciousness until 9pm so I only took on one piece of sightseeing: Sant'Apollinaire in Classe, the church with notable mosaics that is a little way out of town and on a separate ticket from the others. I bought bus tickets at a newsstand and it was easy to navigate with Google Maps. A beautiful introduction to the mosaics! Had dinner at Na Fraschetta near the hotel, which was okay.
Day 2. Ravenna day. The good news was, with the help of melatonin, I slept for 10 hours and felt really refreshed. The bad news was, I appear to have slept unmovingly in a funny position and woke with pain and extreme stiffness in my neck and one shoulder. This proved less than ideal for a day's whose agenda was looking upwards at art in churches! I gritted my teeth and used my legs to move my eyes more than I otherwise would. After breakfast at the hotel, I started at the Mauseoleum di Galla Placida where I'd made my timed reservation for 9:20am. I bought the tickets about five weeks in advance. Contrary to the strict-sounding instructions about being on time for a 5-minute entry window, the Mausoleum was not yet open when I arrived because they were still looking for the keys. LOL. Once they found them and let eight or so visitors in, there was no enforcement of the time limit so I stayed for a while, visiting and revisiting each scene of the beautiful mosaics--especially loved the geometric and star designs. I was supposed to be at the Neonian Baptistry at 10 but the staff said I didn't need to worry about sticking to that, so I saw the nearby Basilica of San Vitale next--my favorite part here was the image of Empress Theodora. Then the Baptistry. I didn't need to rush so I read my book in a pretty garden near here, walked around a bit, and had a nice leisurely lunch outdoors at Ai Cairoli. Then to Sant'Apollinaire Nuovo, where I was amused by the editing of the mosaics to remove disfavored people (a whole row of niches featuring... curtains). Then to the museum and St. Andrew's chapel where I saw my favorite image of the day, a venerable lion-angel with a big bejeweled book. Last stop of the day was the Arian Baptistry at which point I was mosaiced out. Had dinner at Alighieri, which appeared to have not just an entirely local crowd but a local crowd that knew the staff personally. Friendly and good food.