Ravenna then Taneto - 30 October 2022

Whereas we had a lovely day yesterday, today can only be described as frustrating this morning - best laid plans scuppered!

We’d knowingly given Rimini (population c.148,000) a miss. Basically Pesaro on speed! Has 10 miles of beaches, a strip of hotels, arcades, shops, restaurants and clubs. In peak season the resort heaves with noisy crowds day and night - off-season - it’s dead!

I’d wanted to take a detour to Ravenna (population c.159,000) as it’s famous for all the mosaics - and I love a good mosaic!

First hassle was as the clocks had changed, I wanted to sync my watch with my app. There’s been an ‘upgrade’ - couldn’t get it to update - parked problem for later…

Me driving today. About an hour to our parking place. Oh my word - haven’t seen as many mohos together in the last 6 weeks! There were even loads on the motorway going south. At first thought it was a huge gypsy camp, but no - just a full carpark - must have been at least 50 vehicles. Tintin did a quick ‘service’ on Dave, as we’d conveniently parked right by the drain whilst looking for a space.

Found another carpark about 10 - 15 minutes drive away, but it would mean we’d need to get our bikes out. On the plus front, there was space! Also, was only 1.5 miles from the main piazza.

Even found a place to lock up our cycles. The place was absolutely crowded! Had a quick look in a church, just because it was close. After wandering, we found a huge building and went inside. Luckily the lady spoke English, she gave us a map and allowed us to visit the mosaic exhibition upstairs, as I’d said I was on the hunt for the mosaics. The collection was of ‘modern’ mosaics.

I’d totally underestimated how popular Ravenna is! Also, there was a wine tasting, street food, a market and an old style bicycle race going on… and of course, the Italians seem to love being out and about on a Sunday!

There are eight main tourist attractions - all on UNESCO’s world heritage list - hence you have to pay.

We found a huge queue snaking back - and realized it was the queue to buy tickets! It was longer than Florence, but not quite as long as the queue for St Peter’s Basilica in Rome! Lost the will to even try then!

We hung around the Duomo with others, waiting for the service to be finished before we could go in. Huge, but a shortage of mosaics for me!

We toyed with the idea of having lunch - but just couldn’t be bothered, and cycled back to Dave for some lunch.

The roads around Ravenna were truly terrible, glad to get back on the motorway! Some of it even had four lanes instead of three!

I drove for another 2 hours, and we’re now between Reggio Emilia and Parma.

We filled up with diesel again, just off the motorway €83 at €1.85 - much better price than on the motorway - some over €2 per litre.

It’s a small quiet carpark with residential buildings opposite. Went for a walk, the gelataria was open. Wow! The lovely man spoke good English, he makes the gelato fresh each day, experiments with different flavours, and gives you some to taste before you buy if you want. Tintin had Americano (picture of Trump!), which was peanut butter and caramel, mine was a creamy lemon one - delicious, huge and all for €5!

Another bonus, there’s a Conad which we can walk to in the morning to pick up some more milk. We feel we’ll be drinking far more cups of tea after lots of driving!

Dave’s temperature has been showing it’s been 27° outside all afternoon, which agrees with XCWeather - will be cooler in the next few days!

Finally managed to sync my watch, but it’s a bit sad, the VeryFitPro app no longer works, and I now have to use the VeryFit app, and I’ve lost all my history. Anyway, felt naked not wearing my watch all day!

So - 5.30pm, street lights are on - dusk! We’ll have to try and get ourselves out of bed earlier in the mornings to get as much daylight as possible!