Holly heard this piece for the first time at a concert late last year here in Padova. She was instantly entranced by it and has been working on it ever since. As I think we have all come to expect from Holly, the final product here is a hauntingly beautiful interpretation of a magnificent work.
Tag Archives: Padua
Padova for real
It has been a long time since I wrote a post on this site. We have now been in Padova for over a year and I guess I have kind of started living my life rather than writing about it. I am going to try to be better at adding to the blog as I think we have had some great adventures and seen some lovely places. This post was started months ago but just never finished. I am determined to not only finish this one but catch everyone up on what we have been doing.
On February 10, 2018, I wrote a post about our brief visit to Padova while we were driving around this area. Although we were quite taken with this city at the time, we had no intention of actually moving here. It was rather a cold and damp day when we visited, but Padova still stood out for its architecture, its 800 year old university and the market in the center of the city. I would like to give you a sense of this city we have chosen (at least for the present as we have renewed our lease for another year and a half) to plant ourselves, so I have selected some of my favorite pictures of Padova to explain its charm. Some I have posted before and some repeat different moods of the same place.
We live on one of the main piazzas (Piazza dei Signori) in the center of Padova and only 200 yards from one of the oldest and finest markets in Europe. I never cease to be amazed that I actually get to shop there everyday.
The legend here is that after the Trojan War, Antenore (one of the characters in the Iliad) founded the city after the fall of Troy when he led a group seeking refuge to northern Italy. The myth is an attempt to give Padova the same credentials as ancient Rome (which according to legend was also founded by Trojan refugees led by
Aeneas). There is a piazza named after Antenore that has a tomb that was once claimed to be his. Later research has debunked the idea of the Trojan hero actually being in the sarcophagus, but it is a great stop for all guided tours.
The university here was founded 1222 by students and faculty from Bologna who were looking for freedom from what they saw as stifling oversight of the university in that city. It includes in its famous alumni Copernicus and Galileo, who taught here for 18 years. The walls are covered with the family crests of graduates.
The large classroom 
Galileo’s podium 
The Anatomical Theater in Palazzo Bo 
Palazzo Bo of the University with the family crests of rich alumni 
Palazzo Bo of the University with the family crests of rich alumni 
Palazzo Bo of the University with the family crests of rich alumni
Our Piazza is ever changing its’ personality. 5 days a week (Tuesday to Saturday) it is a market with clothing, housewares and plants until about 1 pm. Every night, when the weather is agreeable, it is filled with outdoor diners. It can be a parade ground and a place for protests. Once we had a slate of boxing matches right outside of our apartment.
As with many Italian cities, over the centuries Padova was fortified with numerous rings of walls and water. Nearly every evening we take a walk along one of the canals where we see various water features, an occasional Blue Heron .
I have posted pictures before of the Specola, but from the little bridge near it I can never resist taking one more picture. The tower was once part of a long destroyed fortification. When I realized that Galileo had taught here for 16 years and the city had this great observatory, my heart jumped. But alas, the observatory was added to the tower several centuries after Galileo left. He did many observations here from a different tower, but he had left Padova before he had his telescope.
Padova has what they say is the oldest botanical garden still occupying its’ original site in the world.
The Scrovegni Chapel with its Giotto frescoes is on everyone’s list when they come to Padova. The chapel is hermetically sealed, you have to make reservations at least one day in advance (I suggest that if you want to see it in high season, you make the reservations far in advance) and you only get to stay for about 15 minutes. Is it worth all of that? Quite simply, yes. Those of you who are art history buffs already know what I am talking about. Those who are not, just Google Giotto.
Scrovegni Chapel with the Giotto frescos 
The last place on my virtual tour is the Basilica of San Antonio. It is one of my favorite churches in the world. With seven domes, lavish ornamentation and the tomb of San Antonio, it is a wonderland of visual stimulation. The tomb is a magnet for pilgrims from all over the world and I have never been there when there were not several people praying while touching the tomb. Because of its holy nature they ask you not to take pictures (it could also be because they want you to buy pictures and books from the gift shop and local vendors) so I do not have many of my own pictures of the interior, but I have been able to sneak a few.
The tomb of San Antonia 
Freeze around the tomb 
Freeze around the tomb 
Freeze around the tomb 
One of the main reasons we moved here was the ease with which we could travel. Since we have been here we have been able to visit Venice on a regular basis. We have also been on visits to Trieste, Vienna, Florence, Bologna, Ferrara, Milan, Lake Garda and the Italian alps. Although we miss the good friends we made in Lecce, it has been a good choice for us to be where it is a little easier to travel.
I will write again soon.
Our Move to Padova: or How We Sold Our House in Seattle and found a home in italy
As any of our Facebook friends know, last spring we came back to Seattle for a brief period to sell our house and then move back to Italy once that was complete. An agreement to sell the house was actually in place by the time we landed in Seattle and all that was left for us to do was find a place to move what little was left of our belongings from the basement to a storage facility.
We had already made the decision to find a place to live in Padova and landed here with only an Air B&B for 2 weeks and high hopes. As if it were fated to be, we immediately found a wonderful apartment (first place we looked at) on one of the main squares, Piazza dei Signori. It is in an older building but the apartment has been completely updated and modernized. It has a small balcony that overlooks the Piazza, where we have a ringside seat (sometimes literally) to everything that goes on there.
The day after we moved in was June 2nd and Republic Day in Italy. The piazza was filled with a parade and speeches. It was a grand welcome, although I think there may have been more people in the ceremony than were watching. It was a nice welcome.
Love the hat 
Italy loves uniforms
The piazza, with a 15th century clock tower on one end (it has 24 hours and tracks the movement of the moon, stars and astrological signs) and the beautiful medieval Church of San Clemente The Pope, on the other, is always full of life. It hosts a market 5 days a week, 12 months a year (mainly clothing, linens, cookware and plants), outside dining for hundreds of people during the warm months, and special events: concerts, parades, protests and even a night of boxing.
There were several reasons for choosing Padova. First, with over 200,000 inhabitants and one of the oldest universities in Europe (with over 60,000 students, founded in 1222 and Galileo taught here for 16 years), it is very active and vibrant. Then, with Venezia and Verona nearby to attract all of the attention, it is not overly crowded with tourists. And lastly, it is well located on a main train line and within a couple of hours we can be in Venezia, Firenze, Milano, Roma, Lago di Garda or Torino. It takes less time to get to Napoli from here than it did from Lecce. We are close enough to
Venezia to go there for lunch and we have done just that several times.
We have been very active exploring our new neighborhood and I will update you later on that. For now we are studying Italian (and even teaching a little English) and waiting for spring to begin our travels again.
Just a little note, Facebook changed how I can feed these posts to my profile there and made me create a “Page” to link to. This is the first actual post since that change, so if anything weird happens let me know.