Extra spots
- – Civic Museums of the Eremitani
- – Arquà Petrarca or Montagnana
If it rains, you can stay more time in the Ragione’s Palace and in the churches listed above but, in addition, you can go also to the Civic Museums of the Eremitani. This place hosts actually two museums, the Archaeologic Museum at the ground floor and the Medieval and Modern art museum at the first floor. The most interesting one, in my opinion, is the art museum where we can find masterpieces by Veronese, Tintoretto and Tiepolo. The garden hosts some bizarre modern sculpture.
If you have more time to spend and I mean at least an additional half day, I suggest you to visit one of these two medieval villages not far from Padua. Arquà Petrarca takes the second half of its name by Petrarch (Petrarca in Italian) since the author of Canzoniere lived last years of his life here. The other town is Montagnana, a great walled little gem with a lot of beautiful buildings. They’re not included in the map below and they’re both located south west of Padua and can be reached by train (Montagnana) or Bus (Arquà Petrarca) in about 50 minutes. If you have a car you should be able to visit them both in the same day.
One specialty to try in Padua
There are a lot of similarity between local cuisine and the strongly influencing cuisine of the nearby Venice. Talking about something that it is absolutely peculiar from this area we could start from the wines produced in Euganei hills. There are both white wines such as Fiori d’Arancio (Orange flowers) that is available either dry or as a dessert wine, and red wines such as the local version of the Bordeaux Cut rich of strong peculiarities due to the terroir.
Switching to the food, a very peculiar dish, quite hard to find in restaurants is the Rovinassi Risotto. Rovinassi means chicken giblets. It is a traditional specialty and it is made with giblets and of course also with onion and butter as in any good risotto.
Padua art and other amazing facts
In such a noble town with long history as Padua it is difficult to mention all the interesting facts about local art and the contribution of the town to the scientific development so I will surely forget something.
I will start from something that was not written by a Paduan artist but by an English one (or as someone says, Sicilian… 🙂 ). I’m talking of course about the Bard and his play “The Taming of the Shrew” that as anyone knows was set here in Padua where the shrew to be tamed (Kate) was living.
I’ve talked about art and science also above so I will not repeat any reference to already mentioned topic. An interesting additional story is about the local University that was founded in 1221 making of it one of the oldest in Italy and in the world. What maybe many people do not know is that this University saw the world’s first female graduate. Her name was Elena Lucrezia Piscopia and she was awarded of a degree in philosophy in 1678.
If you go in the nearby town of Vicenza you will see celebrating everywhere Andrea Palladio, read my post on this matter, one of the world most influencing architect but it should be said that he was actually born in Padua.
Switching to a much more modern artist but also very famous worldwide, also Maurizio Cattelan comes from Padua. One of his most famous work is The Ninth Hour where Pope John Paul II is struck down by a meteorite. Well, I don’t know if it is just a coincidence but I would like to end this post mentioning that in the science fiction novel “Rendezvous with Rama” written by Arthur C. Clarke, author also of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the town of Padua is destroyed by an asteroid in 2077. Well, we still have some time…
Padua Photo Gallery
And if you like there is also a short video showing the beauty of this town.
