Padova - a City you can easily Love

We have been to Padova before, but many years ago so today was like finding a  new place to love. It has a population of about 700,000 but you would not think so when you are in the historic centre.Padua is a really beautiful city with a peaceful aura.

We walked all day, our first stop being the Basilica di Santa Giustina. It is a 10th century Benedictine Abbey complex with the Basilica being opened in 1530. Outside it has that plain look of never having been finished, although there are some modern marble sculpures of the four Gospel writers and modern copper doors. It is huge inside with many large side chapels.

It is dedicated to Saint Guistina, a local 16 year old girl who refused to denounce her Christianity and died a martyr in 304 AD.

The tomb of Saint Luke the Evangelist has a prominent position in a transept to the left of the main altar.

From there we went to the Basilica di San Antonio of Padua. This is another huge religious complex, this one was a Franciscan Monastery. St. Anthony died in Padua in 1231and is one of the quickest to be canonised, in 1232. He has a huge world wide following and his patrononage covers a great range of people and needs. Even to non-Catholics he is known as the saint to whom you pray for lost things. 'St. Anthony, help me find my car keys'.

This side view of the Basilica was taken from the Botanic Gardens next door.

It seems that  hundreds of school children are on travel excursions at present and we shuffled through the Basilica behind a large group, no photos are allowed and you cannot deviate from the path. Not a very satisfactory experience.

The St. Anthony memorabilia is a massive earner. He is always portrayed holding the child Jesus and a lily.

The Orto Botanico is fascinating and we spent about two and a half hours there. It is the oldest university botanical garden in the world. It has occupied the same original location since 1545, and it has a distinctive ground plan of a square within a circle.

It was originally set up to help university  students with their studies and to recognise medicinal plants. Over the centuries this aim has been maintained and developed further, and it still belongs to the University of Padua

The outer garden area has many ancient and rare trees; an Eastern Plane Tree from1680, a Himalayan Cedar that was imported into Italy in1828 and a Ginkgo dating from 1750.

A decorative rock wall  surrounds the circular garden and the inner beds and paths are laid out in stone.

Each specimen is labeled with its names, location and medicinal use.

The Biodiversity Garden was closed for maintenance but it has five sections - tropical, sub-tropical, temperate, Mediterranean and arid lands.

The 19th century glasshouses were not what we expected. They housed  a mix of unusual plants but the carnivores were the most interesting.

From there we visited the Botanical Museum which had an impressive display of the work of the early directors, a lecture theatre and  a laboratory. It is no surprise that the Orto Botanico is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

All this before lunch time! We headed to Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Frutti as I had a couple of suggestions for lunch, but we couldn't find either place so we took the first table that we could find. Another porchetta panini for me.

These two piazzas are divided by the Palazzo dalla Ragione which, on the ground floor, houses an 800 year old market. It is also the town hall and the palace of justice.

How to paint (white wash) a house in Italy.

On the end of the Salone, as it is known by the locals, there is a balcony from which all proclamations have been announced since the 1200s.

On to the Piazza dei Signori where the Torre dell' Orologio houses a beautiful astronomical clock. The tower dates from the early 1400s. The piazza is lined with gorgeous palaces and stately homes.

Last stop for the day was the Duomo, or Cathedral. Built in Renaissance style and opened in 1582, it also suffers from never having the facade completed. One article described the Duomo as plain inside and out. This is a bit harsh as the interior is quite huge, well proportioned, light filled and even sleek.

This is the Baptistry, which we may get time to see later..

One surprise was the addition of modern sculpture by the Italian sculptor and painter Giuliano Vangi in 1997. There are several works to this set and all are meaningful and stunningly beautiful. I was so absorbed in looking that I only took one photo. San Prosdocimo and Santa Giustina. Luckily Kel took more so here are the ambo and the altar.

Walking home we crossed the canal ... we could have been in Venice.

To finish off a very interesting day we stopped for gelato ... as you do in Italy.

Wet and Stormy in Padova

Not very much good can be said about today's weather in Padua. After yesterday's wet welcome the rain continued and during the night we had a huge thunder, lightning and rain storm. Today had dry patches, some heavy rain and a maximum temperature of 16 degrees. Not at all travelling weather.

Between rain this morning we made a trip to the PAM supermarket for some food items then later we walked along the colonaded footpaths in our immediate area to get our bearings i.e. check out where the bakeries, coffee stops, wine sales and other important places are. Our neighbourhood is very much self sufficient with all the essentials, as well as a man making hand made shoes, a dry cleaners, art studios, a music shop, offices and more.

We have certainly seen why the colonaded footpaths are a trademark of this part of northern Italy. With so much rain they are pretty much essential.

The Giro d'Italia cycling race is finishing in Padova on the 23rd and the city is beginning to turn pink (the colour of the Giro). Alas we will be gone by then.

The cake shop display included pink meringues, and the tram had a pink livery.

A statue of Vittorio Emanuele II - Liberator stands in a beautiful treed location    and close by is the Sanctuary of San Leopoldo Mandić, both of which have excellent statues but of very different styles.

Most of the afternoon was spent trying to get reception on the tv to watch the Giro, and doing crosswords or sudokus. A break in the radar pattern sent us out to find the Porta Santa Croce, one of the 16th century access gates in the defensive wall. This gate is still locked every night .

We continued on to Prato della Valle, the main piazza in Padua, but again a piazza with a difference. This eliptical area of 90,000 square metres has been a public space since the 1600s. It has an island, canals and many statues. Despite the ever increasing showers we did manage to get a few photos.

We hurried home along the colonades before a detour for a bottle of wine found us stranded by a heavy downpour. Cancel that idea!

We have a fresh pasta shop very close by our casa and Kel went in to buy pasta and came out with a large serve of ready made vegetable lasagne. We have just finished eating it and it was divine.

Still the stormy weather continues. Our plan for tomorrow was to go to Vicenza on the train however this morning they had a code red alert for flooding and had had 61 mm of rain yesterday. It can only have got worse today so we are not going.

We have to do what we missed doing today ... hope the rain stops soon.

San Quirico to Padova by Public Transport

If any of my travel plans were going to go wrong then today was the day! To get from San Quirico to Padua required an early start and four transport changes, and some of the plans were sketchy.

The only bus that could get us to Siena in time for our first train left San Quirico at 7.30 am from a spot outside the town wall, and nobody could tell us where to get the tickets. Some detective work and some luck meant we found a safe walking route to the bus, and our trip back from Pienza introduced us to the fact that all buses in Tuscany now acccept a credit card tap. And it wasn't raining, as predicted. So leg one was accomplished with ease in one and a quarter hours.

As we circumnavigated the city of Siena I tried to capture some shots of the ancient gates.

Less than twelve months ago we were in this very spot having just completed walking 128 kms of the Via Francigena.

Leg two from Siena to Florence required purchasing the tickets on line many months ago without allocation of seats, then very early this morning I had to check-in on line but still no seat numbers. Weird, even weirder that our tickets were never checked.

We arrived in Florence at 10.52 am and had time for much needed food - a vegetarian piadina. A thought crossed my mind that two couples that were with us in Morocco were probably also in Florence today. A quick WhatsApp chat told us that D & K were on their way to Venice on the train and we had just missed J & B who were going to Pisa. What fun!

Our Italo fast train was fifteen minutes late leaving Florence, and the rain had started. The trip was smooth, fast and quiet and I slept for a lot of it. We arrived in Padova just after 2.30 pm. They have obviously had a lot of rain recently as there was water everywhere. Step three accomplished.

Our apartment, Casa Elena, is quite a way from the station but luckily there is a modern tram that bisects the city and runs past our front door. A dash through rain, a book of ten tram tickets and in five minutes we were on the tram ... and not long after, off at the correct spot.

The  casa is fascinating  because it is a self check-in with a big door on a colonaded footpath. Once inside, the wide corridor opens up to a garden and a pair of apartments upstairs overlooking gardens and rooftops. We can't hear the trams but we can hear the church bells.

Another new conversion with all amenities, lots of charm and class. As it hasn't stopped raining we haven't ventured any further than the panificio next door to get some food and drinks for tea ...and then these two little ducks will be wading off to bed. A big day that thankfully went perfectly.