Although the forecast was for cloudy skies and rain in Venice, we awoke to blue skies in Rivazzurra. We were up early, but took our time at breakfast to catch up on emails and upload photos to the blog. We were on the road by 9:30.

The trip from Rimini to Ravenna was . . . interesting. This is clearly a commercial area, although still somewhat geared toward tourists. We did not take advantage of the opportunity to visit the "Italy Miniatures" exhibit along the way. (There was nothing about this in our guide books, but billboards advertising the attraction lined the highway for the 40 km between Rimini and Ravenna.) We also noticed quite a bit more advertising for sex shops, including one that advertised "self service". (We did not want to guess what that involved.) At one point we passed two young ladies with quite the make-up, dressed in mini skirts and talking on their cell phones. Standing along the highway in the middle of nowhere, Glenda suggested, "they were not waiting for the bus!"

It was 11:00 by the time we arrived at our stop for the day - Ravenna. A city known for its mosaics, it is also the burial place of the poet Dante Alighieri. We planned to visit several sites and the lady at the tourism office was quite friendly and helpful . Her English was quite good, so she explained the system of passes to get into the churches and museums.

Our tour of the Old City took us through the Porto Serrata in the north, past the Basilica/Duomo and onto the main square (Piazza del Popolo). From there we went to the Battisteri degli Ariana to view some mosaics. The ceiling of this small baptistery was quite magnificent not only for the quality, but the size of the mosaic. Our next stop was the Chiesa di Giovanni Evangelista, which houses a number of mosaics - some geometric patterns and others that depict animals (real and imaginary), while others portray historic events. We rounded out our tour of Ravenna with a stop at the Palace of Teoderico and a visit to the site of Dante's grave.

Before leaving Ravenna we stopped for lunch at a cafe in a small piazza off via Cavour in the heart of the city. We chose this particular café because they let customers choose several feature items from their daily menu . We had octopus and potatoes, ravioli with basil, pasta with shrimp and zucchini, and some roasted vegetables (sweet peppers and eggplant). It was delicious!

It was getting towards 3 pm and we still had 200 km to travel to reach Santa Maria di Sala, so it was time to hit the road. Since the Autostrada cut inland toward Bologna, we took SS 309 along the coast, past the Po River delta and a nature reserve. It was interesting to see the water fowl, the fishing set-ups, and the diversity of agriculture in the delta, but the traffic was bumper-to-bumper tractor trailers for most of the way.

We arrived in Santa Maria di Sala by about 5:30 and promptly got lost. We stopped at a gas station to look for a local map, then phoned our host for directions. Gino told us the turns we needed to take to get to their house, and Gino's wife - Goretta - greeted us as we arrived. Gino & Goretta own an electronics/office supply store. After they became empty-nesters they decided - on a lark - to rent a room in their house . They are a lovely couple and we chatted with them - assisted by google translate, an I-pod, a Blackberry, a tablet, and some wine. (What did we do before digital technology???) We kept our guests up a bit too late, but we enjoyed every minute. We hope they did too!