Bits of Saints and Chapels - Padua

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Geo: 45.4096, 11.8766

This was to balance the quiet day yesterday – we made an early start, leaving Rita and Elio until we meet up again in Ticino to catch the flight to London in July. And for us, off to Padua, which is about 80 minutes away. Luckily, the kids have developed a love of long car trips – so long as they listen to audio books. We've been entertained by Nim's Island, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and Harry Potter #2, as well as numerous shorter books, this trip, and the kids just love them.

Padua is quite spread out, for a historic town centre, so we drove straight to the Basilica of St Anthony, and got a park on the street just behind it. The outside of the building is nice – quite different with its onion domes, but it is the opulence of the interior that really gets you! And all this in honour of a man who espoused the virtues of poverty and modesty! It does seem a little strange, but you find yourself caught up in the atmosphere, pressing your hand to the tomb of the saint and saying a quiet prayer. I say, the tomb of the saint – I mean, the tomb of the bits of the body that they didn't chop up and display. Apparently, in the 700 odd years that the poor man has been dead, his tomb has been opened twice. The first time, they found that the tongue of the Saint was uncorrupted, so they cut it off and put it in a gold jar and on display. Then (and this is such recent history that it really disturbs me), Pope John Paul II decided that, on the 750th anniversary of the death of the Saint, they should open the tomb again. This time, they found that the vocal chords had not perished, so cut them off and put them in a reliquary. I find it incredibly challenging to explain this to the kids, and even stranger when we queue to view these bits of the Saint (and bits of lesser Saints in lesser gold jars) – it's a cross between Anatomy 101 at uni and a religious experience. Georgia is significantly grossed out, the boys only mildly revolted…Tom says he'd like to be so famous that someone thinks about cutting him up, but not so famous that they do it! And as for some of the stories of the lives of the Saints….well, there is room for a cynical point of view, as well as a devout one…

Matthew bought a little medallion of St Anthony, with a sticker on the back to show that it has passed by the reliquaries of the Saint. Does this mean that they carried the box of the medals into the church and walked by the tomb?

Then, after a detour to buy the supplies for a picnic lunch, we drove to the other side of the historic centre of Padua, and parked just outside the old Roman arena, which is partially ruined but enough to give a feeling of what it used to be. After our picnic in a 2000 year old arena, we casually wandered over to the Scrovegni chapel (now incorporated in the city museum) looking for tickets.

We hadn't done our research well enough to know that, in the 12 years since we were here last, the system has changed and you now have to prebook tickets for an allocated time, up to 4 months in advance. Add to that, your allocated time includes 15 minutes in an airconditioned room watching a video (in Italian) about the frescoes in the chapel with the other ticket holders (20 people only in the chapel at any time), then 15 minutes in the chapel itself. Again, we are lucky tourists, and got some remaining tickets to enter the chapel almost immediately. The changes will preserve the beautiful 13th century frescos by Giotto for longer, and I think that the kids got an idea about how special these frescos are by the rigmarole that we had to go through to view them! Giotto did an amazing job – some frescos he made to protrude slightly from the wall, to make them 3D – others, the delicacy of the tears on their faces, is just amazing. Having paid for the ticket which included the city museum, we had a wander – some interesting Roman artefacts and some wonderful art from medieval to 18th century, and about the right size for the kids to digest.

We then went into the historic centre of town – it was very hot, and all a bit dirty and under renovations – not quite as pretty as I remembered it. The main piazza is having works done, and after a bit of a wander around the Piazza, we settled in for a gelati and coffee in the square before heading off home.

When we got home, our lovely host explained that, on the basis of our emails from Australia saying we'd probably leave on Thursday, his sister had rented the apartment for Friday night…so our subsequent discussion about probably staying until Saturday was now NOT alright. No real problem – Asolo to Tuscany would have been a long drive, so we'll break it by stopping in Florence for a night…but off to Venice in the morning, so we fit everything in that we want to do in the Veneto.

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Comments

[Julia]

Poor little things - it is so tiring travelling the world and being sophisticated europeans! We are all loving the travel logs Kaylene. It is grey and raining here so enjoy the sunshine. Cheers travellers!

[Marguerite Vetterli]

To you all, thanks for your wonderful comments about your trips and the beautiful pictures. I wish you a good return to Ticino.Baci Marguerite