Padova

Picking up with where I left off in recounting my parents' visit, we are now in Padova (Padua).

28-12-08:  This morning we finished the last-minute parts of the clean up and headed out to Padova.  We caught an 11 o'clock train and ate flatbread sandwiches with the last of the fabulous Christmas pork roast for lunch.  We arrived in Padova to find it even colder than Ferrara (oh joy) and a holiday, so we had to wait a while in the cold to get a bus, but once we did it was relatively strait-forward to get to the hotel, even if it was a bit of a schlep.  The hotel was called "Hotel al Fagiano" and had the weirdest decor I have ever seen.  There were all these mixed-media paintings that looked like some nightmarish child's craft room transformed into countless canvasses of naked women, abstract, but always with some toy or feather or other item attached to her crotch.  There was also a one eyed cat which I couldn't figure out if it was on purpose, o just because the artist couldn't find anything lying around to make the other eye with.  The room was decorated like a circus tent in oranges, blues, purples, but was warm and comfortable so I'm not so much complaining as registering my amusement and confusion.  We headed out to the church "Sant'Antonio" and wondered around overwhelmed and awestruck at the sheer quantity of art on every available surface.  Of course, as is the case with all the most beautiful places, no cameras were allowed, so here's a picture of the outside of the church. 

We saw the relic room which houses St. Anthony's jaw, tongue, and voice-box along with the casket in which he was buried and a handful of other things.  For those of you wondering why his jaw, tongue, and voice-box were separated from the rest of his body (I sure was), apparently he was a great orator and that's why they're special.  We then visited his tomb, which, unlike the one of St. Francis, sits in the middle of the church.  There were lots of people there and a long line to touch the marble sarcophagus in which he lies.  Many people had filled out little prayer cards asking him to help them find something they'd lost, as he is apparently the patron saint of lost items.  Deciding we'd had enough, we wondered around the surrounding area looking for a place to eat dinner, but since it was a sunday, a number of places were closed and we returned to the hotel with no prospects.  I asked at the hotel front desk if the guy had any recommendations, and we went up to the room to rest with two possible places to eat.  After a nice rest, I woke up famished and luckily it was late enough that places were starting to open  up (7:30pm) so we headed out.  We were seated by a welcoming and friendly hostess (a rarity in Italy) and waited on by a very happy and genial waiter, who I think may have also been the owner.  The food was really outstanding and the experience was wonderful.  We concluded the meal with a heavenly apple cake which was melt-in-your-mouth good with some bavarian creme on the side and which I judged worthy of at least 10k of running.  We went back to the hotel extremely satisfied and went to bed.

29-12-08: Dad and I woke up early this morning to run together.  The weather was reasonably good and the run was quite nice until I tripped and not-quite strained my ankle.  It was fine to walk on the rest of the trip, but a little sore.  We returned to the hotel and had a pretty good breakfast of coffee and pastries with juice and yogurt before heading out to see the famous Scrovegni chapel where some of the oldest and best preserved frescoes of the famous painter Giotto live.  Not having a reservation, we went to the ticket office and were told that luckily, since it wasn't a busy day, we could visit the chapel in two hours.  So we went to the multimedia room and learned all about the history of the chapel, the process of painting frescoes and the motivation behind the particular frescoes inside the church.  The small chapel is dedicated to the story of Christ.  It is divided in three rows horizontally and twelve panels vertically.  The top row shows the birth of Mary and her life, ending with a large representation of the announcement of the birth of Jesus on the wall above the entrance.  The next row is the story of the life of Jesus, starting with the nativity through his arrest.  The final row tells the story of the passion of Christ, ending with the crucifixion.  On the wall opposite the entrance, unfortunately the most damaged is the breathtaking rendering of the last judgement with Jesus and the angels waiting to welcome the saved and a horrific Lucifer and demons pulling protesting damned souls into the pit.  I wish cameras were allowed, but my description will have to do because no cameras of any kind are allowed.  In fact, nothing but your person is allowed in the chapel and you have to sit in a special climate controlled room for 15 minutes before entering.  Here is a picture of the outside and for those of you who would like to see the inside, ask me the next time you see me to show you the book we bought with all the pictures in it.

After that, it was getting late, so we figured we'd walk toward the hotel and stop for luch along the way.  Strange how we managed to walk back along the ONLY path that could have possibly been completely without open restaurants (or, open restaurants that had soup, which is what Mom wanted).  Probably close to a mile later and breathing down the neck of a total hypoglycemic meltdown for Mom, we finally stumbled into a restaurant where the staff looked less than pleased to see us, but seated us anyway.  Our orders were taken by a waitress watching the projected (and, in my opinion, totally inappropriate for a restaurant music videos) on the back wall and looking like she'd rather be in a dentist's chair getting her teeth drilled.  The food that came was passable enough to have for lunch, but by then I was really looking forward to trying a restaurant recommended by my guidebook for dinner.  

Jumping ahead to said dinner because I can't really remember what else we did, we found the restaurant easily and the menu looked good, so we sat down at a table.  It was all downhill from there.  To start the fiasco, we first ordered a calamari appetizer and told the waiter we'd tell him the rest when he brought the calamari, to which he replied, "I'll come back when you're ready to order everything."  He passed us off to a waitress, who was confused at why we would only be ordering one appetizer for three.  I made a big boo boo in translation that ended in Dad ordering veal liver for dinner and Mom and I both got "pasta e fragioli" which I had had, and loved, the night before at another restaurant.  The calamari arrived and I think would have been quite good except that they seemed to have been breaded in salt instead of bread-crumbs.  Mom was surprised that it was fired, so didn't eat any and Dad and I didn't do a great job of cleaning the plate.  The waitress came and tossed us an annoyed look before whisking it off the table to bring us our main course.  When it arrived, it was like watery refried beans with half a stick of melted butter floating on top and I knew that we were going to have to get something else.  Knowing how extremely offensive sending something back to the kitchen is in Italy, I tried to choke down a few bites and then gave up.  With a lump in my throat, I called or waitress over and asked if we could have the pasta instead.  She snapped "why, what's wrong with that?!"  and I, burning red in the face, replied that it wasn't what I thought it would be.  She whisked the two bowls off the table so fast, I thought they were going to spill and then said "I'll bring you the pasta as well," which I'm pretty sure was her way of saying "don't you dare think we're taking this off the bill."  Surprisingly, the pasta arrived rather quickly and was quite good, but having offended the waitress, it was impossible to get her attention again.  Mom slid her plate over to Dad so he could try the pasta, and of course the waitress chose that exact moment to show up, see no plate sitting in front of Mom and demand of me, "what, she doesn't like anything?!"  I stammered that she had eaten the pasta and the waitress gave a disbelieving little scoff as she cleared the table.  Then we sat, and sat, and sat, waiting for the bill.  We tried to ask for it (another cultural feau-pax), but she was clearly ignoring us.  About 45 minutes later, another waiter came with the bill; apparently we had offended our waitress too much for her to even look at us any more.  So we paid the bill and left, shaking our heads and generally keeping good humor about us.  Oh well, we said, last night was great and from now on, we'll take the hotel's recommendation over the guidebook's.

ps. for the parts of this post where I said there would be pictures and there arn't, sorry.  Blogger won't upload them, so they will be added at a slightly later date.