Padua: from A to Z

Hello to each and everyone one of you readers, I hope the summer of 2017 is treating you well. In the following post I want to give you more details about the places I have been getting to know when I visit the city known as "Padova", or Padua, almost all of the highlights of the tour that I had in the city centre. To make it more readable, I have divided the post with subtitles to you can know a bit more about this beautiful Italian city.

Padua: from A to Z

In this post I will tell you about my short break of less than 24 hours in a city in the Veneto region, called Padova (in Italian) or Padua (in English). For a few weeks I was looking at places to go for a short trip, and looking at Flixbus tickets I realised that they were mostly for less than €8 and the journeys were around 3½ hours.

To prepare for my journey to Padua the first thing I did was to pack a small rucksack with which I began my journey. I left my region at 4am so I could get there at 7am, I returned the same day at 9pm, so it wasn't necessary to book a hostel. This was going to be a quick journey, so I didn't pack many things in my rucksack, other than some things to eat and my beloved camera.

The method of transport that I used

I really like travelling around, and truthfully each city is close to another, and even the big cities are well-connected with the smaller villages. You can travel by bus, train, or your own car; in this case, as I previously mentioned, I went with Flixbus, which I recommend taking if you're travelling within Italy and Europe. If you buy the tickets in advance, they're quite cheap, and after you make a reservation, the data is recorded by the Flixbus system. It's why every now and then they give you a 10% discount code on a future journey. Apart from that, you can also in cases of unexpected circumstances that may affect your travel plans, and you only have to pay a €1 cancellation fee. This was my ase as initially I was using this ticket to go from Rimini to Naples, but in the end I had to change my plans, and I used this code that they gave me to go to Padua.

Arriving in Padua

The Flixbus dropped me off near Padua's city centre. As I knew that I wouldn't be able to charge my phone, I brought 2 phones with me and made sure my camera battery was fully charged, so it would last me until 9pm. When I went out to wander around Padua, I expected the weather to be very warm, but to my great surprise that when I arrived I saw that it was rather chilly. My friends insisted that I shouldn't wear a dress, but I would be better prepared wearing trousers, and honestly, it was good advice as I didn't feel the cold for a while. There was a river very close to the Flixbus station, and next to the river there was a park. This was the first place that I visited, and after that I began my trip throughout this whole area which left me amazed.

A bridge, a river and... a piece of New York's Twin Towers?

There are many places that, no matter how much you search on the Internet, are organised so that the locals of the city are the ones who end up being your tour guides. I'll skip some parts of the story in this post, to focus writing about the things that I remember most about this trip. I brought up the issue of the local residents as one of my friends told me that she knew a man who lived in Padua, and I could meet up with him, although only for a short time, for a coffee. This man was called Riccardo and he lived very close to the city centre. We were in contact the same day of my arrival, and he told me we'd see each other for at least a little while in Piazza Garibaldi, and then we had a coffee and he told me a bit more about Padua's history and what to see on my journey.

One of the things I want to tell you about is something that went unnoticed by me, but I had unknowingly taken a photo of it. In fact, it was one of the first photos that I took, as when I arrived, I found a river with a bridge with some flowers on the upper part. There was a part of this river that was kind of unkempt, but the view was still pleasant. Then, without realising what I was looking at, I took the photo, and in the following image you will see a kind of tower with glass walls that has, within its legacies, a piece of iron from the construction of the Twin Towers, which was in New York.

It was, for me, suprising to be able to see something like this in the city, and I asked myself, why Padua? Riccardo told me the story when we had just passed by this place, and on one of its outer walls you can see the iron that looks out onto the nearby street. He also told me that this wasn't unique to Padua, but also there are pieces of the Twin Towers in many other cities of the world, which was truly surprising. Besides this, he was also telling that in the area of this building inside its facilities, there's a small museum. I didn't ask him any more questions about it, as we didn't have enough time, as he had to go to work after meeting for coffee. Anyway, he was quite friendly to me, and he told me that by all means I had to go one of the most iconic squares of the city, and of course the Basilica too, where one can find the relics of Saint Antonio of Padua.

Why I wanted to visit Padua

Even though I study tourism, the truth is that I don’t really like cities that are full of tourists. Of course, this is a part of the development of tourism, but many cities are crowded with visitors, and nowadays it’s almost impossible to walk around their streets. A prime example, very close to Padua, is Venice, where the city centre is full of tourists, or Italy’s own capital, Rome…

I really like small or medium-sized cities, such as Padua. The day that I was there, which was a weekday, I didn’t find so many people. However, when I returned to the train station at night, I found more people in the centre in the Piazza delle Erbe and the Piazza della Frutta, which is a lovely place to eat a little or have some drinks outside.

One of the reasons that inspired me to go to Padua was to church where Saint Antonio’s relics rest, and of course to also visit the “Prato della Valle” square, which is the biggest square in the city, as well as being one of the biggest in Italy and also in all of Europe.

Also, Padua, like the Emilia-Romagna region, has one of Italy’s oldest universities. For this reason here, on the streets, you can find that the majority of people are of different nationalities, after the Italians from other parts of the country. You can also see Spanish people, who looked like they were students, and also Germans among others.

Padua was one of those journeys you take where you keep your expectations low, but in the end, you leave having had a lot of experiences. Honestly, I didn’t get to go to any museums because that’s just the way it was, and if I had managed to visit a museum, I think the experience would have been more enriching. However, given everything that I saw I can’t deny that Padua has won a place in my heart due to all the things I was able to see in a matter of hours, these types of places that I saw in Rome didn’t affect me in the same way. As they say, each to their own.

As I was initially telling you, Padua is situated in the Veneto region, and so in this area it is very close to wonderful places such as Venice, Vicenza, Chioggia, amongst other cities, and more villages than you can find here, waiting to be visited by us. On the other hand, the Italian accent in this Northern area is special. For some of my friends whom I study with, they have told me that it’s as if a Spaniard was speaking Italian. Honestly, I’m not too sure of this, but now after almost two years in Italy I can distinguish the accents, and I really like knowing about these things. One of the accents that I can easily recognise is that of the Venetians. This is due to one of my classmates at university whom I study with, he is from Veneto, and I’m also lucky that he speaks Spanish, so we communicate using both languages and I can recognise that he is from this area.

In conclusion, Padua or Padova is really full of surprises, you should visit this place and get to know it if you are ever travelling through Italy, as it’s a simple and normal city. But through this simplicity and its art that one finds in its centre with pedestrian-friendly streets, you will have a good experience. I had read that some people don't like it, including the time when I talked with a lady from there, and I told her that I loved her city, she gave me the impression that yes, Padua has its good qualities, but it’s not as pretty as other Italian cities. Be that as it may, for me it was a beautiful city and I am certain that I’ll return in the future to carry on getting to know this city more.

On the means of transport

In Padua, you can travel by train, like Trenitalia, or if you're taking a plane from a nearby city such as Venice or Verona, within the city you'll find different bus lines to use for short-distance travels. To buy the bus tickets, they can be found in any "tabaccheria" of the city. The cost is 1. 30 euros and once validated there's a time-limit of 70 minutes, if I am not mistake, to use the means of transport.

In the city you'll also, find a tramthat stops at several points throughout the city. In this case I didn't take the tram but a bus in the afternoon. Another advantage is that, if you decide to study in Padua, here you'll be able to find spaces to leave your bike and drive through the city centre without any issues.

A little information about the park

Well, as I was telling you, I was near a park when I got off the bus, so this was one of the first places in which I found myself. As a better reference, this park is medium in size and is very close to an avenue that is known as "via Trieste". On the same street, you can see the signs that provide direction to the different destinations that are around Padua, to which you can travel by car.

Having internet on my phone, it wasn't so difficult for me to get my bearings in the city. So, I had plenty of time to calmly walk around and take my time with everything. I was not rushing to go from one place to another, after all I had about 14 hours to travel the city in total; although, this area is not even the central area, better know as its historical part. It's part of what we could call the entrance to Padua's historic centre.

In the park I was able to find a map, which also highlights the tourist attractions that one can find here. At the entrance to the park there's a statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi amongst others, like the faceless soldier. On the other hand, you can also find a small circular swimming pool with some benches next to it. While I was there, I took a few moments to look at the course of the river that flows through the city, in addition the people who were inside the park; some with their pets, others running, other people cycling, and some people walking quietly, perhaps on their way to work.

Let's just say that this park was nothing special. For this reason I mentioned that this was what I liked about Padua; as I delved further into the centre, I was consistently impressed by the things I could find in it.

Visiting a church: Eremitani, Scrovegni

After resting for a little on one of the seats in the park, I realized that there was a church very close by. I set off for this church, known as Eremitani, Scrovegni. From where I was it was more or less a 9 minute walk, and before passing through that place, I had also previously gone by Porta Contarine, Palazzo Cavalli where you can find the Museum of Geomineralogy, and the Palazzo Zuckermann that also operates as an art museum. On the way, I could see that tickets were being sold for entry to three museums, including the church and the Palazzo Zuckermann. It was around 15 euros, but unfortunately I didn't take this option.

Near the park, there was a kind of open-air theatre, where at night they were hosting a film screening. In this case, it was going to be the film "La La Land", and apparently they often do these kind of events there.

There are still more stories to tell of my visit to Padua, so read the next blog posts, so you can follow the same route that I did on this one-day trip to Padua or Padova. It's true that it's a city with much to offer. It can be experienced without blowing your budget on this trip, and it's a getaway that you can take at any time of the year.

Many thanks for reading this post, I hope it's useful. I wish you a wonderful day as always. Until we meet again!

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