Basilica di Sant'Apollinare in Classe

It stands in Classe, a few kilometres from the centre, where the imperial fleet's port was in Roman times. Archbishop Maximian consecrated it in 549, on the site where Saint Apollinaris, the city's first bishop, was buried. It was paid for by the same Julianus Argentarius who funded San Vitale.

You enter an enormous, luminous hall with 24 columns of veined Greek marble. All attention goes to the apse: a flowering green meadow with trees and birds, Saint Apollinaris at the centre with arms outstretched and twelve sheep around him, and above him a great starry blue disc with a jewelled cross. It is the Transfiguration told through symbols.

Along the aisles stand the sarcophagi of the archbishops of Ravenna, from the 5th to the 8th century. The walls are bare because in the 15th century Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta had the marble removed for his Tempio in Rimini. Outside, the cylindrical 10th-century bell tower can be seen from afar.

It is among Ravenna's eight UNESCO monuments. You can reach it by train (Classe station), by bus 4 from Ravenna station or by car, and you can combine it with the nearby Museo Classis with a combined ticket.