RAVENNA (Fri 19 June)

We headed north today towards Milan, we knew we had a lot of ground to cover and so we made an earlier start that usual. Heading up the eastern side we noticed that the land is a lot more arable with a lot of cropping going on. Probably the most remarkable was the large brilliant yellow fields of sunflowers. These appeared regularly throughout the journey. Imagine an old derelict building in the middle of a field of sunflowers in full bloom, set against a back drop of perfectly blue sky and the snowcapped peaks of the Abruzzo mountains. It just doesn’t get better than that.

The first part of the trip was easy traveling along the autostrada, with the only light entertainment being the hookers sprinkled along the sides of the country roads like a trail of sultanas leading the way. Not sure how this all works, as these girls are out in the middle of nowhere, perched under the shade of their umbrellas, plying their trade. It makes you wonder how they get there for a start. Do they catch a bus? Is there a scooter hidden in the ditch? Do they get dropped off by a caring family member? The other thing that it makes you wonder is who is going to use their services at 9:00am on a weekday morning? Does some truck driver suddenly think “Hmmm … what a great idea, that is just what I feel like”. Or do people know that they are there and go looking for them. All I know is that there wouldn’t be so many out there if they didn’t do any business.

Anyway, moving right along … after a while we hit the stop-start through the small beach resort towns, with their private beaches and rent a deck chair beach frontages. We got sick of this very quickly and so we hit the toll roads. This saved us four hours in traveling time but cost us 12.30 Euro, which when you convert to NZD isn’t so great, but at least we arrived in decent time. We wanted to get as far north as we could today and we were aiming for Rimini, but we landed a little north of this in a place called Ravenna. The main attraction for us was that they had a hostel at an affordable price. The hostel turned out great despite the fact that we were greeted with two sets of bunks when we got to our room, but a clean comfortable place with good amenities and free bikes.

After throwing down our packs and having a nice cold beer we decided to take the bikes for a spin, but it is debatable who was taking who, these things had a mind of their own. The bikes themselves … well they were a little rugged. They were solid, sturdy, built to last, and had a suspension like two bricks tied together. After an hour or two of riding around on the towns cobblestoned streets we found parts of ourselves wobbled that had no right to wobble, and the parts that used to wobble, were now worn through. Or at least that’s how it felt. Despite this, it is quite a decent plan they have here, where they provide free bikes for both locals (red) and tourists (yellow). I suspect that the locals that have any sense buy themselves upgraded models. There are bike racks everywhere and this seems to be the main means of transport through the old part of town at least.

We did a quick tour of the old town (biking is an excellent way to get oriented) but by the time we got there most things had shut, and so we made a note of what we want to see in the morning before we leave. The tomb of Dante is here. This is where he lived after he was exiled from Florence. The interesting thing here is that even now Florence provides the oil for the lamps around the tomb. How’s that for penance, or is it some kind of major grudge by the locals. Byron also lived here for a while, but what Ravenna is best known for, is the 1500 year old churches with, from what we have heard, amazing mosaics, that Dante described in his ‘Devine Comedy’ as a symphony of colour. We are looking forward to seeing them tomorrow.

This is a nice town, and a pleasant surprise. Although we are not where we intended to be (Croatia), we are enjoying the alternative journey that today has taken us on.