We got up to our alarm, showered and got breakfast. Then it was off to the train station and to Padua, or Padova in Italian.

The train was packed, no air conditioning and it was quite humid.

We got to our hotel, Hotel Plaza. It’s a very nice hotel. Unfortunately, it’s Sunday and so almost everything is closed, and the streets remind me of Omega Man.

We stopped at Caffe Cavour to get sandwiches, stopped for some gelato, and then went to the Musei Civici agli Eremitani, which houses a great collection of ancient artifacts and paintings from the 13th through 19th century. Unfortunately, no photos and no catalog (at least not one worth purchasing). We did get our tickets to see the Giotto frescoes tomorrow.

A plynth we saw walking around

This snack bar goes back to the 1600s

This is one of the cool door handles at that old snack bar

The sculpture garden outside the museum

The sign for Musei Civici di Padova

We walked past the Basilica della Madonna del Carmine, closed of course.

We continued over to the Palazzo della Ragione, which is pretty neat, an old wooden structure covered on the inside with small paintings; it was originally painted by Giotto but a fire consumed that building – these were executed in the 1400s.

Palazzo della Ragione ticket

The facade

One of the frescoes

A view of part of the wall – this is how the interior is decorated

The entryway

The large horse sculpture

A niche

There is a clock inside

One of the frescoes

One of the frescoes

One of the frescoes

One of the frescoes

We had Coke Lights and some wonderful biscottini (marmalade and Nutella filled) at Caramel Cafe, then to the Battistero del Duomo di Padova, the Bapistery – if you visit Padova you must visit this place, the frescoes inside are amazing, clearly from the 13th through 14th centuries, some almost Byzantine, others quite Renaissance. No photos but they sold a nice book.

Back of the ticket for the bapistery

Front of the ticket for the bapistery

A beast

The north wall

The east wall

The apse

The dome

The Duomo is nothing to write home about – it would be appropriate in a northern European (ne Protestant) locale. Services were going on, we checked it out and then escaped.

We walked through an open air art sale on the back streets on the way back to the hotel.

I think that graffiti says it all

A closeup of the clock in the tower

The facade of a church that was closed

A relief high up on an arch outside a business

The old clock tower

Padua along the river

Because it’s Sunday, not much is open, so we ate at a Ristorante Antico Brolo just a half block from the hotel. And it was quite good – Aviva had spaghetti with clams and I had veal stuffed with cheese and herbs.

My main course at dinner – it was wonderful!

This was my appetizer, an Italian ‘egg roll’

Aviva had her favorite, seafood pasta

We stopped at a pizza delivery place to get water and Coke Light for the morning – I can’t imagine how crazy it is to run a pizza delivery place in Padova, the woman in charge was really busy, yet nice.

Back to the hotel to rest for tomorrow.