Leaving Piazzale Roma (car terminal) after approx 1 and half hour drive south you'll reach the beautiful city of Bologna where you'll have the opportunity to admire Piazza Maggiore, the heart of city's life since Roman times as you can see from the recent discoveries unearthed from the former  stock -exchange hall, the king Enzo's Palace, a romanesque building dated back to 1244  used as a prison for the son of the emperor Frederich the second, the D'Accursio Palace a medieval fortress  now used as the Town Hall, the Neptune Fountain, a masterpiece of the Flemish sculptor Jean Boulogne (Gianbologna), the Basilica of San Petronio the most belated  gothic church in Europe with a famous sundial, the two Towers built in the 12th century as a status symbol of  the most important bolognese families the Porticoes, a ribbon of more than 35 kilometres of columns which goes  all along the  town and the Medieval Market along the narrow streets. For lunch your driver will suggest you a nice local restaurant to taste the local specialties. After lunch, you'll drive to Ravenna, city of art and culture, of mosaics, which 1,500 years ago was capital three times: of the western Roman Empire, of Theodoric King of the Goths, of the Byzantine Empire in Europe. The magnificence of this period has left Ravenna with a great heritage of historical buildings. There are no less than eight buildings declared World Heritage by UNESCO. The art of mosaics did not originate in Ravenna but its greatest expression is to be found here. It was here that Christian iconology originated, a mixture of symbolism and realism, of Roman and Byzantine influence. Even today this ancient craft lives again in the schools and workshops but the beauty of the mosaics is not the only thing: in Ravenna one can stroll among the bell-towers and monastic cloisters, passing from Romanesque to Gothic, from the Giotto-like frescoes of Santa Chiara to the Baroque art of the apse in S. Apollinare Nuovo; from the tokens of the last refuge of Dante Alighieri to the Palaces that saw the loves of Lord Byron. Whoever sees Ravenna falls in love with it today just as it happened in the past to Boccaccio who set one of his most beautiful novels here, to Gustav Klimt who drew obvious inspiration from it, to Hermann Hesse who dedicated some verses to it while visiting. Ravenna is Roman, Gothic, Byzantine and also medieval, Venetian and finally modern, civil and hospitable, with abundant cultural events and prestigious international occasions that project it into the future. Return to Venice in the late afternoon.