This didn't quite work out as well as I had hoped. The place had a certain "feel" that I was trying to capture but I knew that there was too much dynamic range between the light and shadow, so I hit it with a 3 frame HDR (+2EV to -2EV). Alas, even that didn't really give the feel that I remember.

Behind the tomb of Dante there is a park, and alongside it is the wall of the Basilica of San Francesco, as we see here. The dappled sunlight coming through the trees gave it an amazingly peaceful ambience, or would have done had we not been "on the clock" as always. We had only a couple of hours in Ravenna.

Part of the problem of our stay in the town was the short time that we had. Part of the problem was the signage; we would follow signs to a place of interest and then.... nothing. The place we were expecting wasn't there, or there were no further signs leading on to it so we spent part of our limited time walking intently, then aimlessly. The third part is that there were things under our nose that we didn't even realise were there. The aforementioned Basilica, for instance, has its crypt below sea level. Over the years, the water has returned to reclaim the space. As a result, if you descend into the crypt you see marble floors covered with water with goldfish swimming through it. I am soooo annoyed to have missed that, for I just came across some photos of it. It would have been amazing to see in real life.

Ravenna still isn't high on my list of places to return to but only because other places are higher. If I was living in Italia for a year I would undoubtedly head back here for a few days to check it out better.

Maybe I'd even get some shots that captured the vibe of this place, but it would be more likely with morning or evening sun than midday sun.