By jahdaimoriah
Its funny how one person can dictate your experience. This weekend I traveled to Assisi and Ravenna, two small towns north of Florence. I went to Assisi on Friday it was a quiet two hour drive to the town who only fame comes from the fact that Saint Francis came from Assisi and was buried there. Italy is known for its relics--basically dead bodies, sometimes body parts of saints, martyrs, and catholic heroes. Assisi is a small, mountain side town--it's really hard for me to call it a town seeing as it only has one road.
Although I am a fine art major, I find most art history pretty boring. I am a fan of modern and pop art--I like shiny things and bright colors. I was sure it would be another boring church tour looking at fading frescos. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed myself. My tour guide was amazing, he blast into action teaching us how to read the panels of fresco. He taught us that there are stories in fresco and you must read the left to right. As he explained each fresco, they became almost like comic books with Saint Francis the reluctant protagonist who turned superhero: Christ Crusader and his noble followers known as the Franciscans. With each explanation, I was able to create a script to the wordless panels of art. My tour guide cracked jokes, gave us background stories, and although he was teaching us art history he made it fun. I left Assisi having a greater appreciation of art history, frescos, and religion as a whole.
Flash forward to a day later. We are on the bus to Ravenna at 8 am. The tour guide gets on the horrible bus microphone and drones on and on about the mosaics we will be seeing in Ravenna. I, being cranky from stupidly staying out late at night, was not in the mood for a lecture and wanted my tour guide to have the same enthusiasm like my previous one had. I soon realized that was not happening.
We get to Ravenna and there is a huge crowd and music playing in the main piazza--from what I gathered Ravenna is competing to be the culture capital of Europe and this was one of the events to promote it. I perked up a bit when I saw the crowd dancing to a reggae track that was playing, however, my tour guide rushed us passed the town center to a Basilica to see our first mosaic. Like the frescos, mosaics are supposed to be read, however, they are read from top to bottom. The mosaics itself were beautiful and as an artist I appreciated the beauty and hard work of the mosaics. However, I was unpleasantly distracted by my snooze fest of a tour guide. She went on and on repeating the same things about each mosaic. I yearned to escape from the dim-lighted basilicas and go dance to the music with the towns people.
This went on for about two hours before me and my friends decided to hatch an exit-strategy. By the time we stealthily slipped behind a pillar and scaled two walls out of the church--okay more like just walked off from the group who had fallen under the tour guides sleep spell--the fun in the piazza was over. We of course were not pleased.
My friends and I ended up in a restaurant and over good food hatched a new plan to return to Ravenna and see it our way. Next time we will leave the villainous tour guide at home.