A Quick Tour Of Italy - Padua

If you are looking for a European tourist destination, consider the Veneto region of northern Italy on the Gulf of Venice. Veneto is famous for Venice, an extremely popular tourist destination but hosts many other excellent tourist attractions without huge crowds. This article examines tourist attractions in central Veneto’s university city of Padua. Read our companion articles on northern Veneto, southern Veneto, and that Shakespearean city of Verona.

Padua, population over two hundred thousand, about twenty-five miles west of Venice was the setting for Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. It claims to be northern Italy’s oldest city and was the Italian Army’s headquarters in the First World War.

The historic city center is surrounded by Sixteenth Century walls. Don’t miss the Nineteenth Century Neoclassical Caffé Pedrocchi, one of the largest in the world. The Twelfth Century Palazzo della Ragione is a huge marketplace. Padua University founded in 1222 in the city’s historic center was long renowned in many fields. In 1678 it awarded a doctorate in Philosophy to the world’s first woman graduate.
The Seigneurs’ Square is home to the Seventeenth Palazzo del Capitanio, the residence of the Venetian governors with its great door. The nearby Cathedral, remodeled in the mid-Sixteenth Century after a design by Michelangelo, is not one of his finest works. The Fourteenth Century Scrovegni Chapel is Italy’s best-known chapel after the Sistine Chapel. Its fresco collection devoted to the life of the Virgin Mary is virtually unmatched.

Padua’s most famous church is the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua started around 1238 and completed after the turn of the century. Don’t miss the great fresco collections at the nearby Thirteenth Century St. George Oratory and the Sixteenth Century St. Anthony’s School.
Padua’s Botanical Garden, founded in 1545, was the world’s first. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is a scientific research center. Nature lovers will appreciate the Eighteenth Century Pisani Palace about eight miles southeast of Padua on the Brenta River. Don’t miss the trompe-l’oeil frescoes on the ceiling and the a-maze-ing park.
One of Padua’s best-known symbols is the Prato della Valle said to be Europe’s largest square after Moscow’s Red Square. It includes tombs of several saints and relics of the Apostle St. Matthias and the Evangelist St. Luke.

Padua has quite a selection of unusual food specialties, such as torresano allo spiedo (pigeon raised in tower lofts) and sfilacci (salted, dried, and smoked horsemeat). Our companion article I Love Touring Italy – Padua provides a sample menu and more information on local wines plus an in-depth examination of its tourist attractions. Colli Euganei DOC is made in many styles from local or international white or red grapes on the volcanic hills southwest of Padua.