Ravenna Beyond Tuscany: A Mosaic City That Changed Our Italian Journey
They reached out from the United States with an unexpected message.
We finally have time. Tuscany was the plan — and they asked if I would help them navigate its beauty.
I smiled and said yes.
Emily and Jonathan are not tourists in the traditional sense. They live inside art. They think through it, question through it. They run a gallery in New York, and it quickly became clear that they weren’t interested in ticking boxes. They wanted to understand a place, not just see it.
That’s how Ravenna entered the conversation. Quietly. Almost casually.
The city of mosaics. Let’s go there too.
Until then, Ravenna had lived somewhere at the edge of my curiosity. I had written a lot about Tuscany here — the Maremma countryside, Florence, familiar routes and beloved places. Ravenna, honestly, had never made it onto the blog. I hadn’t been there myself. And maybe that was exactly why it felt right to step outside the usual Tuscan rhythm and head north for two days, into Emilia-Romagna.
Ravenna doesn’t reveal itself all at once. It doesn’t perform.
It waits.
This is a city that has been the capital of three empires, home to eight UNESCO World Heritage sites, and the final resting place of Dante Alighieri. And yet, it never feels overwhelming. It invites you to slow down, to notice details, to stay present.
When we arrived, the air felt different — clear, bright, easy. Blue sky, soft light, perfect walking weather. Almost immediately, I felt the pulse of a city that holds centuries of stories without needing to explain them loudly. Ravenna doesn’t demand attention; it rewards it.
Dante’s presence lingers here, quietly. His final lines from The Divine Comedy echo through the city like a whispered truth:
“The love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
There are moments in Ravenna when time simply pauses. The Basilica of San Vitale was one of them. As we stepped inside, the reaction was instant — a shared, unfiltered wow. No exaggeration. The mosaics, blending Eastern and Western influences, radiate an almost unreal beauty. This wasn’t admiration; it was awe. Emily and Jonathan felt it too. Rarely do expectations dissolve so completely in front of reality.
Nearby, the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia appears almost modest from the outside. Step inside, and the world changes. A mosaic night sky unfolds above you — deep blue, scattered with stars, centered by a golden cross. It’s the kind of beauty that silences conversation.
Ravenna’s story continues in the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, where Gothic and Byzantine worlds meet, and in the quiet power of its museums. But this city isn’t frozen in time. Street art appears unexpectedly, modern and alive, like contemporary mosaics woven into ancient walls.
One of my personal surprises for Emily and Jonathan was a visit to Koko Mosaico, a small workshop tucked into a quiet street of the historic center. Inside, Arianna and Luca work with glass, marble, stone, resin, even coral — transforming fragments into stories. Luca Barberini, internationally recognized and especially known in the United States, spoke with a passion that was impossible to ignore. Watching them work was intimate, focused, almost meditative.
What began as a two-hour mosaic workshop turned into something else entirely.
By the time we left, Emily and Jonathan had already made a decision: they would return in early summer, stay for five full days, and complete their own mosaic — roughly 32 x 23 cm — from start to finish.
And because no Italian city should be explored without a market stop, we wandered into Mercato Coperto between walks. A beautifully restored 9th-century building, once a fish market, now the city’s living room. Fresh pasta, bread, local cheeses, cured meats — and an interior that mixes old and new effortlessly. Chesterfield sofas beside steel tables, warm light, layered textures. The perfect place for a glass of wine, an olive oil tasting, or a classic Romagnola piadina with squacquerone cheese, prosciutto, and arugula.
Ravenna surprised all of us. And I still have a few surprises saved for day two — before we return to Tuscany.
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