Half day in Ravenna

Half day walking tour of Ravenna will allow you to be exploring the most popular sights and attractions in town, as well as discovering its lively, authentic Italian lifestyle. The tour will be embracing the UNESCO heritage sites of Ravenna: from St. Vitale Basilica and Galla Placidia Mausoleum I will be leading you all across the ancient Roman town area in order to be reaching the area of Cathedral and Neon Bapistery, up until St. Apollinare Nuovo Basilica.

Stops will be arranged at the most popular sights into town: People’s Square, St. Vitale Basilica, Galla Placidia Mausoleum, Neon Baptistery, Dante Alighieri’s Tomb, St. Francis Basilica, St. Apollinare Nuovo Basilica.

Half day walking tour of Ravenna is 3 hours long. Full accessibility to all stops.

Tour details

Ever since ancient Medieval times People’s Square has been heart and cradle of Ravenna: from Gothic Town Hall to Renaissance Venetian monumental Columns, architecture here is just unbelievable. This is the best place to be spying on locals, here gathering to be chatting and hearing the latest news in town. Ravenna is still just a quaint, relaxed small Italian town at its heart, the best in order to be exploring authentic Italian lifestyle.

Early Christian St. Vitale Basilica is definitely the most brilliant, mesmerizing monument of all Ravenna. This is where you will experience your very first mosaics in town. And this is something you will remember for the rest of your lives, believe me. Prepare to be left speechless by stunning grandeur and glorious glare of Byzantine times decorations: from marble to mosaics, this is Byzantine art at its best. Following a most mysterious labyrinth depicted on the floor of the church we will be reaching the stunning chancel area, where purple-dressed Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora are represented, still presenting golden treasures to Jesus himself after one-thousand five hundred years.

The so-called Galla Placidia Mausoleum is what the late Roman Empress is said having been building for herself and her family. All is quiet, blue-nuances colour and hugely atmospheric. In the darkness, ceiling breaks down in a million golden stars glittering in a lilac sky, hundreds of cerulean and white flowers blossoming all around, doves and does delicately picking up water from vessels and pods. If Heaven was a place on Earth, that’s definitely what it would be looking like. This is some of the best Italy has to be offering you.

At the very centre of ancient Ravenna Roman town, this is where the Cathedral still stands, topped by a Baroque dome, flanked by octagonal Neon bishop Baptistery: this is the facility baptism was conveyed once by year, on the night between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. On the inside, Roman mosaics come alive with alternatively golden and white dressed Apostles mosaic figures beckoning at you from the top of the dome, in a perpetual, mystical rotation movement around Jesus Christ figure.

World-beloved poet Dante Alighieri died in Ravenna in 1321, and here laid to rest in a simple tomb close to the Franciscan Fathers cloister he was fond of. From Oscar Wilde to Lord Byron, many of the most prominent writers all over the world reached here paying homage to the sommo poeta. St. Francis Basilica is one of those vivid images of Ravenna that will stay forever with you. On the outside, the church looks like an average late Roman one. But on the inside, a most remarkable and unusual thing will be attracting your attention. I’m not anticipating anything, but let me ask: have you ever seen sea reaching into a church?

St. Apollinare Nuovo Basilica will be our final stop. This is the Royal Chapel king Theoderic the Great built for himself and his Arian religion court. On a mesmerising pure gold background, reminiscent of pure glory of Heaven, two long processions of saints and virgins reach out to Jesus Christ and holy Virgin Mary sitting on thrones, on Apocalypse Day. The scenes are incredibly popular, and you will surely be reminiscent of them from many books and pictures memories. But now, you will be experiencing it, right soaking into the golden glory of the mosaics.