Padua really is the business. We stayed in Padua for the morning and cycled in the afternoon. Hot, but worth it for extra time in Padua. Actually, I’m beginning to think that 32C is optimum for cycling!
The highlight was yet another set of 14th century frescoes, this time in the Baptistero of the Duomo. I have never really liked comic books as a way of story telling – but some of these cartoon strips of Bible stories are great fun!
The lowlight was the Basilica of Saint Anthony – hideous! Anthony’s incredibly overblown tomb is here, along with associated relics. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things – which is handy because I have lost a pair of quick-dry Rohan underpants and I’m down to my last pair. I had a word as I passed the tomb, so we’ll see!
The afternoon’s cycling was relatively uneventful, except for two items. First, the cycle path into Vicenza gets top marks for being well surfaced (in contrast to Padua’s cart tracks) and, second, we cycled beside, and even slightly up, a hill into Vicenza. We have only had bridges to climb since hitting the plain about 10 days ago.
On arrival in Vicenza at 4pm we discovered that all the Palladian cultural sights planned for tomorrow’s day off are shut on Mondays. Of course. As in Parma a week ago. But they are open on Sundays to 6pm.
So, for the second day in a row, it was a case of high-speed showers and straight back out. In 90 minutes we visited:
The Teatro Olympico – Palladio’s 1580 architectural recreation of the Greek city of Thebes as a stage set. Weird, but a masterpiece of perspective.
The Pallazo Leoni Montanari – a Baroque palace with fantastic ceilings and an over-the-top Loggia featuring Hercules and a big stick. Oh – and a priceless collection of Russian Orthodox iconography in the attic.
And all this with no thought of our stomachs! So then we needed beer and, later a huge plate of pasta. But we weren’t done yet! The Basilica Palladiana was open until midnight (but not Mondays!). This is not a church but effectively the town hall, built by Palladio on three floors.
We climbed to the roof terrace for a bar and live jazz and great views over the rooftops as the sun set.
Many of these Palladian buildings have life sized statues standing on the edge of the roof. From the street I always want to shout “Don’t do it! Don’t jump!” So I was delighted to find the the more suicidal ones had steel harnesses holding them on to the roof. I am still puzzled as to how you do psychometric testing on a Palladian statue.
Helen’s track of the day:
I am not a Muse, Paul Heaton.
The Baroque nonsense in this evening’s palace was so over the top, full of statues, cherubs and muses for showing off purposes by the original palace owners. Seeing the Muses brought this song to mind. Although a new song it may make the kids nostalgic for their early childhood when I used to play a lot Beautiful South tracks whilst ferrying them around.