Travel Sketchbook #2056 Ravenna and Venice [October-November 1960]

[RB Journal entry]
Oct 31 Ravenna.

Fancy hotel, very up-to-date with tiled bathroom fancy light switches, but chickens on the roof. Italy!
Old buildings are tender. Here, they’re kept up and pointed to unlike Florence where there’s a sort of proud indifference and you’re expected to know or be damned. It’s bright and light-flooded here, a little cooler, breezier. the coast is breathtaking; the sea pure green.

San Vitale is an astonishing piece of architectural ingenuity. It’s gentle, the right scale (all these early basilicas are right, don’t suffer from grandiosness of say Duomo in Florence) and the spirit remains; truly hallowed places.