Ravenna travel guide, in your ear
Ravenna: San Vitale, the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, the Neonian and Arian baptisteries, the Archiepiscopal Chapel, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, the Mausoleum of Theodoric and Sant'Apollinare in Classe, with Dante's tomb, Piazza del Popolo, the Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra and the museums.
- 13 narrated stops
- ~39 minutes of stories
- 6 languages
- Offline ready
What is the Gingerguide Ravenna tour?
Ravenna has 13 narrated sights on Gingerguide's self-guided audio walking tour. Plan about a full day to walk them all. The app is free to download, every city has a free preview, and the tour works offline in six languages.
It is a self-guided audio walking tour of Ravenna, Italy, inside the Gingerguide travel guide app. The tour maps 13 sights and tells the story of each one in a two to three minute narration with a lifelike AI voice. When the story is not enough, ask the built-in AI guide about the place and keep the conversation going. Everything is available in six languages and works fully offline after a one-time download.
Which audio guide app is best for Ravenna?
It depends on the trip. For Ravenna, Gingerguide gives you all 13 sights on one offline map, narrated in six languages, with an AI guide to ask. Other apps are better for a single human-narrated walk, for museum guides, or for driving. We compared the main options honestly, with sources.
About Ravenna
Ravenna today is a quiet, elegant city near the Adriatic coast of northern Italy. But for more than three centuries it was one of the great capitals of the world, and it holds some of the finest early Christian and Byzantine mosaics in the world.
In 402, as Germanic peoples invaded Italy, the emperor Honorius moved the court of the Western Roman Empire to Ravenna, protected by marshes and close to the fleet at Classe. After the fall of the Western Empire, Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, ruled Italy from here. Then, in 540, the armies of the emperor Justinian took the city, and Ravenna became the capital of Byzantine Italy for two centuries.
Each of these rulers left buildings of brick, plain outside and glowing with mosaic inside. Eight of them are listed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site: San Vitale, with its portraits of Justinian and Theodora; the starry Mausoleum of Galla Placidia; the two baptisteries, one Catholic and one Arian; the bishops' chapel; Theodoric's palace church and his stone tomb; and the basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe.
Ravenna is also the city of Dante. Exiled from Florence, the poet spent his last years here and died in 1321, and his tomb, beside the church of San Francesco, still draws visitors from all over the world.
The mosaic tradition lives on: workshops in the city still make and restore mosaics, and you will see modern mosaics in streets and shops.
Taste the piadina, the flat bread of Romagna, filled with cured ham and soft cheese, and the local wines of Romagna.
Most of the monuments are within walking distance in the compact centre, and Classe is a short trip south. Two separate combined tickets cover most sites: one for the diocesan monuments and one for the state sites, so plan ahead, and book the timed entries in high season.
One day in Ravenna
A simple way to walk the highlights, following the route order in the app. Swap anything; Ravenna rewards detours.
Afternoon and evening
Have more than a day? Ravenna in 2 days →
What to see in Ravenna: all 13 stops
Every place below has its own narrated story in the app, and its own answers when you want more. Walk them in any order; the map shows what is around you.
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Basilica of San Vitale
The Basilica of San Vitale, an eight-sided church of the sixth century in Ravenna, whose apse glows with Byzantine mosaics of the emperor Justinian and the empress Theodora.
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Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, a small cross-shaped building of the fifth century whose dome is covered with a starry sky of gold on deep blue mosaic.
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National Museum of Ravenna
The National Museum of Ravenna, in the old Benedictine monastery beside San Vitale, with Roman and early Christian stones, ivories, icons and medieval frescoes around two cloisters.
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Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra
The Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra in Ravenna, the House of the Stone Carpets, a late Roman and Byzantine townhouse found in 1993 three metres below a church, with fourteen mosaic floors.
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Neonian Baptistery
The Neonian Baptistery in Ravenna, an eight-sided brick building of the fifth century beside the cathedral, whose dome shows the baptism of Christ among the twelve apostles in mosaic.
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Archiepiscopal Chapel and Museum
The Archiepiscopal Chapel of Sant'Andrea in Ravenna, the private chapel of the bishops built around 500, with mosaics of Christ as a warrior, and the museum with the ivory throne of Maximian.
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Tomb of Dante
The Tomb of Dante in Ravenna, a small neoclassical temple of 1780 to 1781 beside the church of San Francesco, where the remains of the poet Dante Alighieri rest after his death in exile in 1321.
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Piazza del Popolo
Piazza del Popolo, the main square of Ravenna, with two tall columns of 1483 from the time of Venetian rule, an arcaded Venetian palace and the battlemented town hall, closed to traffic since 1969.
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Arian Baptistery
The Arian Baptistery in Ravenna, a small eight-sided brick building of around 500, built by the Gothic king Theodoric for his Arian Christian community, with a dome mosaic of the baptism of Christ.
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Sant'Apollinare Nuovo
Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, the palace church built by Theodoric in Ravenna around 505, whose long nave walls are covered with gold mosaics of saints, virgins and the three Magi in procession.
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Mausoleum of Theodoric
The Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna, the stone tomb of the Ostrogothic king built around 520, roofed with a single block of limestone about ten metres wide and weighing hundreds of tonnes.
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Sant'Apollinare in Classe
Sant'Apollinare in Classe, a basilica of 549 standing alone among the fields south of Ravenna, whose apse mosaic shows Saint Apollinaris among white lambs in a green meadow under a jewelled cross.
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Classis Ravenna Museum
Classis Ravenna, the museum of the city and its territory in a former sugar factory at Classe, and the nearby excavated Roman port, telling the story of Ravenna from the Etruscans to the early Middle Ages.
Three things most visitors miss
Basilica of San Vitale
The mosaic panels of San Vitale show the emperor Justinian and the empress Theodora, although neither of them ever came to Ravenna.
Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is named after her, but she died in Rome in 450 and was almost certainly buried there, not in Ravenna.
National Museum of Ravenna
The National Museum of Ravenna began with antiquities gathered by learned monks in the eighteenth century and moved into the monastery of San Vitale in 1913.
Ravenna tour: questions and answers
How many days do you need in Ravenna?
To see Gingerguide's 13 narrated highlights of Ravenna on foot, plan about a full day. The tour is self-guided, so you set the pace: cover the whole route in a day or spread it across a trip. Each sight has a two to three minute story, roughly 39 minutes of audio in total.
What are the top things to see in Ravenna?
Gingerguide narrates 13 sights in Ravenna, starting with Basilica of San Vitale, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, National Museum of Ravenna, Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra. Each one has its own audio story on a live map, and you can ask the built-in AI guide anything the story leaves open.
Do I need a tour guide in Ravenna?
Not a human one. Gingerguide covers Ravenna with 13 narrated sights, so you get the stories a guide would tell, at your own pace and on your own route. And if a story leaves you with a question, you can ask the built-in AI guide and discuss the place right there, the way you would with a guide.
How many stops does the Ravenna audio tour have?
The Ravenna guide covers 13 sights. Each one has a researched story of roughly three minutes, about 39 minutes of listening in total. You choose the order and the pace; the tour is self-guided.
Does the Ravenna tour work offline?
Yes. You can download Ravenna in the app, audio, photos, and offline map tiles included. After the download, the full tour works without an internet connection.
Which languages does the Ravenna guide support?
Every Ravenna narration is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Turkish, and Chinese. You can switch the language in the app at any time.
Is the Ravenna audio guide free?
The Gingerguide app is free to download, and Ravenna includes a free preview: you can see all 13 sights on the map at no cost. A premium subscription unlocks the full stories, audio narration, and the offline download.
Hear Ravenna tell its own story.
Preview all 13 Ravenna stops free in the Gingerguide app.
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