Ravenna for a day

John-Paul and I decided that we were going to go to Ravenna on this Saturday and we could not have been more excited. It was at one time the capital of the Byzantine empire and it was filled with beautiful mosaics. I hadn't heard much about it and therefore knew very little about it. I knew it had mosaics, it was beautiful and it had Dante's body. We took the train and because I had a rail pass I didn't need a ticket. It was also a regional train so it was gonna be a good trip. The train left at 7:29, I was supposed to meet John-Paul at the train station at 7:15, and the train station is 25 minutes away by walking. I woke up at 7:05 because I slept through my alarm. This was not good. I got dressed and left by 7:10. I ran a little bit and got there by 7:20. I found John-Paul and found my platform, then decided I had enough time to grab some McDs. I got on the train at 7:29 and ate my McDonald's while aboard. We got there by about 10 and I slept the whole time. John-Paul didn't validate his ticket so he was worried that he would get fined the whole time. We got there trouble-free, although once there we couldn't find a single information stand so we didn't get a map. Fortunately we just wandered through the city and used maps to find our way through to the main square where we managed to find this pretty little palace:

The square itself was really nice:

The palace was dedicated to Giuseppe and I don't know which one because there were quite a few ( John-Paul decided to follow these guys up the stairs to the palace where we kicked out):

Romanesque arches next to a very nice almost medieval building:

Eventually we wandered upon Dante's tomb and it was really cool. John-Paul is a big fan of Dante:

Dante's grave with a beautiful inscription of him. Above is a small oil lamp that is always lit and the oil is paid for by Florence. Florence pays for it because during a power change the new group exiled Dante and even after the change was over and he was invited back, he refused because he was so upset. Florence sends formal requests very often for Dante's body and they are always refused:

Me with Dante:

During World War 2 they moved his body underground for fear that it would be bombed and destroyed by the allies. This is the location it was moved to:

A mosaic outside of the Dabte museum:

I signed into the museum book in case one day I become famous:

Classic Smerican students donating money to museums of amazing poets, philosophers and scholars:

The box where Dante's bones were originally hidden. They were hidden in this box from Florentines that would try to steal them as well as Napoleon: 

The Library of the Dante museum. Had about 20,000 volumes and all were about Dante. Also the guy there was really nice, even though his English was not very good, we were still able to understand him:

There was a giant, amazing book on the Divine Comedy:

Other Divine Comedy copies:

The main square/ cloister that is surrounded by the museum on the top level. I don't know if the monastery is still there:

The square has all of these plaques on it with all the deals and different names of towns on it, I tried to only take pictures of towns I'm going to or have been to. Here is San Giminiagno :

Prato:

Arezzo:

Pisa:

Lucca:

Bari:

Milan:

Assisi:

Rome:

Ravenna:

Florence:

Verona:

Venice:

This bad boy is St. Francis Church and we went in later:

Instead, we met with our professor Dr. Malone and he took us out to lunch. I got this thing which was kind of like a sandwich/ burrito thing. It was awesome:

Dr. Malone showed us where we could buy a pass that got us into four different historical sights. This first one was amazing. It blew my mind. It was the most amazing thing I saw there. It was all mosaics which is little pieces if stone stuck together on a wall to make a beautiful picture (most of it's gold): 

Afterwards, we went to the mausoleum of an old Roman emperor and his wife and saw all the beautiful mosaics there:

They were cleaning some mosaics while we were there:

Then we hit the baptistery which was obviously beautiful and over done completely. It was great:

Then we decided to stop inside of the Cathedral and it was very nice:

The cathedral from the outside:

Then we went into the St. Francis church. It was very plain, but very nice:

This actually moved if you put in money:

There huge fish in this grotto and the lights only came on if you paid a euro which stunk:

A giant theatre:

This church was so nice, but way overcrowded inside. And you had to past to get in (which I hate):

Very nice mosaics up top:

It was kind if loud inside but a lot to see:

One if my favorite parts was outside the church, there was a little garden where one could sit and relax, which I did for a little bit:

After the last church, John-Paul and I headed to the train station to see if we could catch an earlier train since we saw a lot and what we imagined was everything. We did and we had time to grab some dinner. I'm not gonna lie, it was a pretty nice day. I would definitely recommend Ravenna to anyone for a move day trip or even a nice weekend if you want to stretch it out.