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Our campsite is on the coast; at Lido di Adriano. It's a large site but well organised and proud of its eco friendly bits. The Italians seem to have adopted PV panels on quite a large scale. We have seen many 6-kilowatt examples (eg 32 panels) on private houses, which is much larger than at home. I guess their roofs are bigger than ours! This campsite claims that it is entirely run from power so generated nso it has a great many more!
The site is obviously used by lots of Italians who seem to have their vans here all season. They all seem to have vast covers over their caravans, some even have false roofs. Everything is surrounded with great awnings as well as flooring. I suppose all of this is necessary to keep out the heat at the height of the summer!
Lido di Adriano is about 7 km from Ravenna so onto the bus again, this time from immediately outside the campsite for the €2 ride into town.
Ravenna proves to be a really good place to visit. Its smaller than other cities but still has those characteristics we have seen before. Traffic free (almost) with plenty of shade, narrow cobbled streets and the old style of buildings makes for any easy and pleasant stroll along the streets. Bikes are rather too frequently to be seen, however, as they are allowed and since the riders seem to either intent upon ignoring the walkers and rushing about or they progress slowly and in a zigzag fashion as we the walkers ignore them!
As before we have to buy a ticket to see the key sites, in this case it is the mosaics and they are amazing. We first visit San Vitale built about 600 AD so quite old! We are now in the pre-renaissance era so its more byzantine in looks but the colour and the artistry is outstanding. Of course, crowds of tourists confront us, although what it is like at times that are more popular is hard to imagine.
Our visits are to a 1600 year old Mauseleum, A Basilica, and a Museum.
Lunch was in a restaurant that specialises in Emilia Romagna food and wine; that's all they do. It was inan old building with wood panelled walls and long wooden tables. The walls with loaded with wine bottles and apparently they have the same wine in many vintages you can sample different years. Sadly as it was lunch time we had to pass on that opportunity. The atmosphere was very heady and noisy and it was soon full up wit Italians having lunch. One group of thirteen sat opposite us and had a small, folded pizza called, I think, each plus a glass of wine and coffee. Not much we thought but they chatted away noisily, one man in particular making a lot of exuberant noise. I guess this was all very Italian; and the wine was Ok. I had a Sangeoivese and Meryl drank a white Albano. Both went well with our pasta. I had sausage in a cream cause and Meryl had Tagliatelli with a meat sauce.
Refreshed we did a little more site seeing before finding our bus home.
After this we have a rest day and then maybe return on Monday for more art and culture. Tuesday is a holiday in Italy and most of Europe (Labour Day) so we won't be travelling but on Wednesday we may go and look at some birds before driving south to Urbino.
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