If you arrive in Ravenna by car you will face the usual problem of where to park during your visit. Now, I am congenitally incapable of willingly paying for parking - indeed we toured Italian WHS for 17 days and only spent 2.60 euros on it! Even if others are not so “penny pinching” it may be of use to know that there is a large, well paved area of free, long term parking in front of the Mausoleum of Theodoric. You are going to want to visit there anyway and the car park is only a 15 minute walk from the San Vitale complex and the city centre.

Another logistical aspect about Ravenna’s WHS which it is worth understanding is the ticketing system – this is complex even by Italian standards. There are 8 inscribed locations – 5 of these (Archiepiscopal Museum with the Chapel of Sant’Andrea and the Ivory Throne, Neonian Baptistery, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Basilica of San Vitale and the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia) are in Ravenna centre and require a combined entry ticket (you cannot buy an individual ticket for any of them), 1 (Arian Baptistry) is also in the centre and is free to enter and 2 (Mausoleum of Theodoric on the city outskirts and Basilica of Sant’Apollinare 6kms away in Classe) require a different combined entry ticket. That combined ticket also includes the (non-UNESCO) National Museum at San Vitale and these 3 sites are also available for entry by individual tickets at each (at a slight extra cost over the combined ticket if you want to visit all 3 but cheaper if you only want to enter 1 or 2 of the WHS locations). I won’t go into the opening hours as they too are complex, with each having slightly different opening/closing times and are best studied on up-to-date web sites BUT, most importantly, all except the National Museum are open on a Monday!

We decided that we didn’t need to enter the Theodoric Mausoleum (It is well visible from beyond the fenced in area and is worth seeing if only for its 300 tonne single roof stone) and not to see the National Museum. So we bought a ticket just for Classe and then one for the 5 in the city. If you do decide to “complete the UNESCO set” with a visit to Sant’Apollinare at Classe I would recommend going before you get “mosaiced out” in Ravenna itself!. The Mosaic in the apse is particularly striking and “famous”. The site also has good free parking and doesn’t suffer from the tourist crowds and noisy guides as in central Ravenna – indeed visiting the Galla Placidia mausoleum was a bit of a “bun fight” even on a mid September afternoon, with its own separate queue and a 5 minute time limit with lots of “pushing” among the tour groups when inside.

The site overall is undoubtedly justified as one of our “Top 200”. At all the locations the mosaics are wonderfully “fresh” and so different from the later Christian iconography on display at most Italian religious sites. It is interesting to use the site as a starter for exploring the “Arian Controversy” and trying to identify the “Arian” aspects and the possible numerous “firsts” among extant early Christian art – the beardless, naked Christ (photo), the first mention of the names of the 3 Magi, the depiction of Satan counting goats and lacking later acquisitions such as horns etc etc.