Mosaics and More

Another sunny and beautiful day here in Bologna. I hope the weather is good there too. Is it spring yet? We saw lots of trees budding as we rode on the train today.

But first, a few things about last night. We went back to some of the porticoes and tried some night shots. Here's the result:

Love this little guy with his scarf

Dinner was at Da Cesari, a small family-run trattoria. The owner told us his mama was in the kitchen making the recipes of his grandmother who used to own the place. And the food was fabulous. We both ordered the ravioli special - stuffed with ricotta and pumpkin, spinach, and sausage on top.

Greg had a fillet with polenta but mine was the better dish! It was scallopini and yes, I know it looks like a big mess. But it had prosciutto and cheese on it and it tasted awesome!

Even though we still had panna cotta at home in the fridge, we had to order theirs because the mama in the kitchen cooks it for hours and uses no gelatin. Think I can just make this in the crockpot?

We also tried pumpkin sorbet with balsamic. Very refreshing! And colorful.

Enough about food. For a little bit, anyway.

We were up early and off to our first day trip destination - Ravenna. It's about an hour east of here, and our train trip went well. We found the Tourist Office, picked up a map, and walked to the first of several UNESCO World Heritage Sites. These historic buildings are known for their mosaics, and they are truly breathtaking. This was on my bucket list for this trip and I'm so glad we went. The Basilica San Vitale was the most spectacular and the first one we went to see. It was built in the mid-500's. Hard to even imagine. It's impossible to capture the mosaic work and the frescoes but here's an attempt at the mosaics:

And here is the ceiling which is painted and very cool:

And here's a picture of Greg taking a picture of the ceiling:

Everything we saw after the Basilica paled in comparison, but we did see the Mausaleo next door and liked the look of the outside.

Lunch was at Ca' de Ven in the town of Ravenna. We went there thinking we would have a sandwich with piedini, the local bread, but we were tempted by too many other things. We shared a fritatta with onions and potatoes

And we also had some pasta with meat sauce. I think we'll keep eating pasta with meat sauce every day until we leave here! Good thing we're walking miles every day!

Another train trip tomorrow.