Leaving Italy (Padua and Venice)

After Rome, it was time to head up and over to the Dalmatian coast.  We contemplated heading further south in Italy to visit Naples and the Amalfi coast, and maybe even Sicily, but decided that it might be better to save that for a separate trip in a warmer season. It was hard to point the car north though, when all we wanted to was get as far south as possible for the chance to reach some sun.

Our friend Giorgio recommended going to Padua (or Padova) and this is where we decided to base ourselves in order to visit Venice, which is about 30 minutes away.  Padua is a small city and has been mostly rebuilt after the WWII, but it still has some neat sites to check out including the famous Giotto frescoes at the Cappella degli Scrovegni.  The story goes... in the 13th century a rich nobleman had a chapel built and dedicated to the holy virgin to save the soul of his father who was a usurer.  A usurer you ask?  Uh huh!  Usury is the act of charging interest.  And in medieval Europe this was considered a mortal sin (basically, you were expected to accept your lot in life and "work" was integral to being human - it was god's will, so to make money without actually working for it was an insult to God).  And so many nobleman decided to trade a life in hell (in fact the father mentioned above is mentioned in Dante's Inferno) in order to advance the lot of their families.

We weren't allowed to take any pictures in the chapel but we did capture a few in the Baptistery, which were done in a similar style by Giotto's contemporary, Giusto de' Menabuoi.

By the time we were through with both of these sites, I felt pretty confident being able to recognize the main scenes from the New Testament such as: the Last Judgement, The Adoration of the Magi, the Resurrection, Massacre of the Innocents, etc...   If it were me, I'd get pretty tired telling the same old story over and over again (but that's just me).

We also checked out the September 11th monument designed by Daniel Libeskind, which was a little depressing, but we cheered up after buying new slippers at the market.  Nothing like a bit of shopping and cosy toes to pick up one's spirit. 

Although we didn't intend to visit every single church in Padua, we did because we kept thinking that the next one on the map was Saint Anthony's Basilica.  By the time we reached Saint Anthony's a full service was in process, but many people were milling about so we felt fairly inconspicuous as tourists.  Marcus lined up to visit the tomb of Saint Anthony which was very busy with people praying with the palms pressed onto his tomb and pinning pictures of saved loved ones onto the wall.  Apparently he is invoked for the recovery of things lost and by those who have been saved from harm. Of course we couldn't miss seeing the relics of his lower jaw and vocal cords!  All in all, Padua was a nice little surprise. 

From here we drove to Venice on a wonderfully sunny but cold day.  We parked just in the outskirts and took a boat bus to the San Marco square.  Despite the cold, Venice was packed.  We strolled about for a few hours, had a nice meal in a restaurant that we would never be able to find again.  We asked some people where they got takeout hot chocolate and they kindly guided us the shop.   We were getting cold and so made our way back to the car.   Five days later, Venice would experience the worse flooding in 20 years, with tourists having to wade through thigh-deep water.  Ick!

More pictures of Padua and Venice:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kristine.d.morris/20081126PadovaVenice#