Escape from Venice: Padua

First, a small disclaimer:

For some reason, I thought that blogging while travelling would be easy. My sister has a computer, everywhere has internet these days - or so I thought - so how hard could it be?

Well, turns out that I got my math wrong. 1 computer / 4 people = 0.25 computer/person. Added on top of that, average internet access = approximately 15 minutes/day, so 0.25 * 15 = only 3.somesmallnumber of computer minutes on the internet, person/day. Or something like that.

Needless to say, this has not been working well for blogging. Its just so interesting to be travelling, and there's so little computer time that I have been terrible about keeping up. My apologies! Now we are driving around poland, so copious in-car time means a chance to blog, and perhaps even catch up.

Dont let me forget Padua (in Italian, Padova). In addition to its appreance in Shakespeare plays - the initial draw - Padua was very much worth the short visit we made to it on the way from Venice to Florence. Renowned as the 'brains of Veneto (the region in which Venice is sitauted)', Padua is still a university town, built out around the beautiful old medieval town center that contain the 'second best' produce market in Italy (after Bologna, the culinary center of Italy). Most importantly for our purposes, Padua contains the Scovegni Chapel, built in the 13th century and decorated by Giotti and his assistants between 1303 and 1305 over 200 working days. The frescoes are apparently considered by many to be the first work of modern art (modern as in post-Middle Ages, not modern as in Jackson Pollock). In order to maintain the frescoes, the chapel is tightly sealed, strictly air-conditioned and only 25 visitors at maximum are allowed in at a time, for only 15 minutes. In order to avoid letting in warmer air as visitors enter, we were first treated to an informational video in the room adjacent to the chapel as the air around us climatized; it was largely unhelpful, but subtitled in English, occasionally hilariously. A buzzer went off at the end, and we were allowed into the chapel itself. The frescoes (detailing scenes from St.Anne, Mary, and mostly Jesus' life, what a surprise in famously Catholic Italy) are gorgeous, the precision and humanity with which Giotto painted making it no surprise that he was famous in his own lifetime. His art, including hte chapel, arguably influenced artists for hundreds of years; the informative video attempted to make this point by comparing his paintings to those of later artists, with some comparisons striking, others fanciful. The depictions of women were particularly touching, the tears from their eyes as their babies were struck from them gripping in the Slaughter of the Innocents. Certainly a worthwhile sight.

The rest of Padua was rushed, although Josh and I did make it to the Basilica, which was a glorious mishmash of styles, colors and portraiture. Each alcove was decorated in its own way, with starry blue midnight sky often painted overhead, the architecture a fascinating combination between catholic and Byzantine. My favorite basilica or church in Europe that we visited, although or visit only lasted about fifteen minutes because we had to run to catch the tram back to the train station (and we almost didn't go inside, but were instantly glad the minute we did).

A run for the tram, to the train station, and it was off to Florence for us all.