A Place To Ride A Bike And Hang Ten With Dante Alighieri: Ravenna

From Bologna, from the hostel which moonlighted as a mouth of hell, our group took a train an hour sideways to the town of Ravenna. Ravenna had its glory when the Byzantine Empire declared it a sort of new capital for the West. This, of course, did not last, but it was a nice thought.

Ravenna takes the pedestrianism (if you use a fake word in two separate posts, it becomes a real word, as by the wand of The Blue Fairy) of Bologna to a new level: the center of the city, the historical section, is sealed off from cars, and is for foot traffic only. And bikes. The great attraction of Ravenna, which was unknown before we arrived, is that the tourist office rents bikes for free. I was all over that. The six of us formed a gang named the Yellow Jackets, and road from church to Byzantine church disturbing the peace and studying mosaics. We would have broken bread on some fools, if said fools gave us the opportunity.

The bike I rode was in its prime. Yes, it did have a basket and a bell. And no, it didn't have gears. Or the type of brakes you can still buy. I called her The Gilded Mongoose. In order to prove my personal bad attitude, I often rode The Gilded Mongoose standing on the seat, without a helmet. And when old ladies gave me a hard time for being so reckless, the Yellow Jackets let 'em have it. In a breaking bread sense. Which in itself is a phrase that doesn't really exist, but, like pedestrianism, I'm trying to force into vernacular.

Ravenna is the final resting place of Dante Alighieri, that one writer who penned that group of books, the Divine Comedy. There's nothing divinely funny about them, if you ask me. Just the story of how a few people screwed up. However, in Ravenna they make a big deal out of him. Kicked out of Florence early on, he spent most of his time in Rome, but gave the last three years of his life, along with all his remaining bones, to Ravenna. There he is entombed, as well as carved into stone. He has his own museum there, too; it was sadly closed. When asked at what point the museum would reopen, meaning at what hour, the proprietor replied, two or three years. I was not about to wait that long, even for Dante.

Being declared the beacon of Byzantium in the old Roman landscape was kind of a big deal, so for a stretch Ravenna was showered with money, and from this money churches sprang up like dandelions, which I have recently discovered are a type of weed. Imagine that! But, yes, churches like dandelions; the most interesting church by far was the Basilica di San Vitale. The church is a rotund one, a circle surmounted by a dome, which is a rare shape in Italy (I am told). The only light comes from the stained glass windows, and bounces off the mosaics the Byzantines are so famous for, creating what the architecture students called, "a heavenly light." It was spectacular in the sense of the root word, spectacle. It was like a stage drama, watching light bounce this way and that, then those ways and these.

But the river card? Saint Vitale probably never existed. The church was named after a non-existent saint. If that isn't something else, then everything in this world is the same.