Ravenna: Land of Mosaics

Friday, September 16th, we drove to Ravenna and it poured the whole way there. We stopped in Bologna at an AIC restaurant that I knew had fresh made pasta. I don't remember any more what I got for my starter, it was delicious, and my main was a fantastic pumpkin ravioli. I don't remember what Jay got either, because it all came crashing down at dessert. I was very excited to see that they had a gluten free tiramisu, so I ordered it. Out it came, and it was the glorious creamy looking thing with little cookies in it. I'd seen gluten free savoiardi, so nothing struck as odd. I took a few bites, smiling in pleasure at Jay. Then the worse happened. The manager (possibly the owner) came over, took my plate out from under me and said "Excuse me madame, excuse me" and walks away. I knew what this meant and Jay and I looked at each other in horror After a moment she came and explained that there had been a mistake and they'd brought me the regular tiramisu. She spent most of the time trying to explain why it wasn't her fault. The issue was that someone other than her had taken my order and he hadn't entered in the computer correctly as gluten free. However, that guy knew perfectly well that I was gluten free, and even made sure to give me the gluten free, so the error was in his training. I was mad. I still am, a little bit. I should add that on the reviews for this place, the exact same thing had happened: everything was fine until they brought out the wrong tiramisu. So they weren't learning from their mistakes.

Anyway, the damage was done, I felt betrayed, and an otherwise wonderful meal was sullied by an unfortunate error. We left shortly after that and continued the drive to Ravenna, hoping that I wouldn't start getting any muscle spasms before we made it to Ravenna. I had some aches, but we made it ok.

Ravenna was a place that Jay had found on some list of places to visit way back when we first started planning this trip. It got stuck in his head, and one of his few requests when I was planning the trip was that we visit Ravenna. It's on the east coast of Italy, not too far south of Venice. We didn't know much about it before we got there, except that it boasted several UNESCO world heritage sites. As I said, it was pouring, so we holed up for the evening and made ourselves comfortable. We were so full from lunch that we forgot to even think about dinner until after the grocery stores had closed. We had some prosciutto that we'd bought that morning in Empoli, in case we needed a snack, and the apartment had a sparsely stocked fridge and pantry. There were a couple of nectarines and a bag of potatoes. At first I was content to eat nectarines, and Jay ate some of the stale breakfast cookies from the pantry, but we realized that wasn't going be enough. I was feeling pretty awful, thanks to the accursed tiramisu, so Jay chopped up some of the potatoes and some garlic we were carrying along in our grocery bag and fried them up with the prosciutto into what made for a small but very satisfying dinner.

The weather was looking much better, so Jay and I ventured out in search of food. Jay was instantly charmed. It had a very similar vibe to a California beach town, but with an Italian twist, so of course Jay felt right at home. It took me a little longer. I was tired, underfed, and glutened. I was not my best self. We found a grocery store, stocked up on snacks, returned to the apartment for a quick lunch and then ventured out to see the heritage sites of Ravenna. Turns out, Ravenna is something like the mosaic capital of Italy. Or Europe. Or the world, I don't know, something like that. The point is that they have a lot of absolutely gorgeous mosaics, Byzantine and Roman, dating from the 5th and 6th century. We spent a lot of time with our jaws agape. The pictures barely capture it. 

Old Roman gate in to the town center

Mosaics in the Basilica of San Vitale (also below)

Mosaic in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (also below)

Next to the Arian Baptistera we had lunch at a restaurant that had GF fresh made pasta and I had a delicious carbonara while Jay had seafood pizza. After that we returned to the apartment so I could nap. We had pasta for dinner, and ventured out for gelato that evening. We had a couple of options, but I chose the one that called itself a sorbetteria, cause I figured they'd have more choices for Jay (all the lactaid in the world can't make gelato safe for Jay). I was correct and he had a very tasty watermelon sorbetto. My gelato was awesome as well.

Ceiling mosaic of the Arian Baptistry

Mosaic ceiling of the Baptistry of Neon

Sunday, we woke up slow and headed to the beach around 11. We enjoyed walking around with our feet in the water until was time to have lunch at another AIC place we'd found. We had delicious seafood based antipasti (a carpaccio for Jay and octopus for me). Then I had a GF fried seafood platter, cause I can't pass up an opportunity for gluten free fried food. Jay had pasta with clams. Both were awesome. We stopped at a big supermarket on the way back and got steak and veggies for dinner. We were feeling a little carbed out. The steak was perfect. A little later we returned to the sorbetteria for gelato, then headed to bed. We had a long drive the next day.