Padua

I think it fair to say that of all the places we visited, Padua was not the most immediately enticing. It is a fair walk into the old town from the station and it is rather overtaken by commerce, ie people going about their daily real lives. On top of which it was about the most overcast day we had in Italy.

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What it does have when you get far enough in is a surfeit of churches and cathedrals. And we omitted the main attraction - the Srovegni Chapel, as I remembered visiting it when we were interrailing and not really being impressed by the Giotto frescoes. (Mike who was interrailing with me doesn't even remember visiting, so guess he wasn't impressed either!) So we started up with St Antony's Basilica

An angel of death for you

Camp looking Jesus

But my favourite part of Padua was the botanical gardens, the world's oldest university botanical gardens, established in 1545.

But they have updated the greenhouses somewhat!

Mike waiting patiently for me!

Basilica di Santi Giustina

Cage of St Luke. Not evident why he had a cage....

But the most impressive place in Padua is its largest square, which really is a park, not a square, Prato Delle Valle. It follows the plan of the entirely removed Roman theatre. It is surrounded by an oval canal with statues of famous Paduans. Would have photographed much better on a sunny day!

On the way back to the station we passed the Liebeskind designed memorial to the September 11 attacks

Returning home, our last night in Verona, so we made it a good one. Cocktails beforehand..

And then a fine dinner in a really lovely restaurant.

And finally "home" to our emergency digs. As I my have mentioned I booked and meticulously planned this holiday. Unfortunately I booked our lovely Verona flat up to 30 June, and our Milan apartment from 1 July. It didn't dawn on me that if we checked out on 30 June and checked in on 1 July, we had nowhere to sleep on 30 June. Fortunately out lovely Verona host messaged around and we got a splendid place to stay for one night - a newly renovated spot so not properly established. Which suited us just fine. Bold decor!