Urbino, Ravenna

Published on: Oct 18, 2007 

Urbino was a real delight, in so many ways I can't express effectively. However, the town is not as welcoming of tourists, and stores and museums are often closed at odd times. It was an adventure in many unexpected ways. We did manage to visit the Ducal Palace and the house where the painter Raphael was born and raised. Urbino struggles to keep itself off the tourist radar, and that's one of the things I liked most about it, as I was curious to see more of Italian village life than to see more places like Assisi or San Gimignano where tourism supercedes the real life of the town. I enjoyed sitting in the main piazza and watching the inevitable discussions going on between students, elders, etc. In fact, standing around and talking seems to be an important pastime in Urbino.

Urbino

Francesca, my penpal from Lissone, arrived on Sunday afternoon, and we spent the next few days exploring Urbino together. On the last day, she figured out that we could get a daily bus pass, which enabled us to travel easily back and forth from the hotel to the city center. So we spent Tuesday afternoon riding all the city bus routes (it's a small town, so they didn't last long) to see as much of the area as we could. After touring the city wall many times, we decided that it looked much too clean and new to be the same wall as in medieval times, and later learned the city had begun restoring it in 2005.

Now that I've eaten a few good Italian meals in ristoranti and trattorie, I don't want to eat anywhere else while I'm here. I've had some amazingly delicious food this week.....including strozzapretti con pancetta e peperoncini, saccotini con pancetta e piselli, olive all'ascalano (olives stuffed with meat and breaded, then fried), and sweets like cannoli, panacotta and tiramisu. I also discovered that eating a good Italian meal doesn't have to be costly...and wine costs about the same as bottled water with a meal.

Landscape around Urbino.

The landscape surrounding Urbino is astoundingly beautiful. I couldn't get enough of the rolling hills and pristine beauty. The citizens of Urbino continue to vote against highways that would enable easier access to their town, and I can easily understand why. Though I loved Assisi, Urbino provided a contrasting view of village life, one that could easily be lost with crowds of tourists tramping through the streets.

Mosaics in Ravenna

 I left Urbino early on Wednesday to catch a train to Ravenna, arriving about 11 a.m. I quickly made the rounds of the churches with the Byzantine mosaics. It's hard to get a real sense of the craftsmanship behind them, since they're only viewable from a good distance (high up on walls and ceilings), but they were impressive, nonetheless.

More of the exceptional mosaics in Ravenna.

Then I visited Dante's tomb. Unfortunately the Dante museum was closed, as they are restoring the church next to it. Uffa! I was really looking forward to that....following Dante's trail while he was in exile has been one of my travel objectives.

Dante's mausoleum.

Dante's actual tomb.

What I like best about Ravenna isn't in most of the travel guides I used as references. For one, Ravenna is a town of bicycles, as this region of Italy (Emilia-Romagna) is flat and this is common. Business men in suits ride simple bikes while talking on their cell phones. Senior citizens ride them, in both casual and elegant attire. The city even provides "free" bikes to tourists, bikes you can ride for a distance and leave in designated places when you're finished with them. (Bikes were also prevalent in Bologna and Parma, other cities in the region.)

Basilica di San Vitale, Ravenna

Another thing that I found by accident is the Ravenna fortress, or Rocca Brancaleone. It's another walled structure that once served as a defense for the city, but now there's a large park within the fortress walls, with one end of it set aside for outdoor performances. I also stumbled across a botanical garden, complete with ripe fruits languidly hanging from several pomegranate trees....the food of gods!