I took the day off from fighting with software and slept
late then read in a cafe for a while before eating some really
excellent lasagna. Then I went to see San Vitale because it is
open at night this month, but I forgot my italian id card, so I had
to pay 7 euros like any other tourist. doh!
From Oscar Wilde's "Ravenna":
But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all,
Thy ruined palaces are but a pall
That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name
Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame
Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun
Of new Italia! for the night is done,
The night of dark oppression, and the day
Hath dawned in passionate splendour: far away
The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,
Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand
Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,
From the far West unto the Eastern sea.
Ravenna is nice after about 3 beers in a cafe, with some nice old buildings, churches
from late antiquity and even the modern buildings from after the 2nd world war are
fairly artistic, and I'm sure it was even nicer before the walls were dynamited in the 19th century.
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