• Hotel breakfast 8:00 AM – it wasn’t great, but was solid. Returned the key at the office desk and left the hotel 8:20 AM
  • Around 8:30 AM we took the vaporetto (waterbus) to Galleria dell’ Accademia (Accademia stop). We were using our 24-hr tickets that we bought yesterday. Interesting sights during our Grand Canal ride: 8:34 AM – Riva de Biasio, 8:36 – Fondamenta del Traghetto, 8:36 – Turkish “Fondaco” Exchange, 8:39 – Ca’ Pesaro, 8:40 AM – Ca’ d’Oro, 8:42 AM – Traghetto S. Sofia, 8:45 AM – Rialto Bridge, 8:56 AM – submarine, 8:57 – Ca’ Rezzonico, 8:58 – Traghetto S. Samuelle. Reached the Accademia Gallery stop (under the Accademia Bridge ) around 9:00 AM.
    Accademia Bridge, Venice

    Accademia Bridge, Venice

  • Galleria dell’ Accademia offers a very rich collection of Venetian paintings from Veneto and other artists from the Bizantine and Gothic periods to the artists of the Renaissance – Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Veronese, Tintoretto and Tiziano until Gianbattista Tiepolo and the Vedutisti of the 18th century – Canaletto, Guardi, Bellotto, Longhi. It is the Venice’s best art museum, considered to be one of the world’s most significant museums. They allow only 300 visitors in at a time; to make sure that we get in without a problem, we bought the tickets online on August 4 (€7.50 per person, including reservation fee). Our entry time was at 9:15 AM, but the reservation confirmation note was saying that we should be to be at the Gallery’s ticket office at least 15 minutes in advance with the BOOKING REFERENCE (reservation code assigned when ordering online).
  • It really is a must-to-see for the art lovers (at a very affordable price!). Unfortunately, one of the Accademia’s most famous possessions – Leonardo da Vinci’s Drawing of Vitruvian Man was not on display, still it was one of the best museums we’ve seen anywhere.
  • We left the Accademia Gallery around 10:30 AM and still being able to use our 24-hour travel card, we took the #1 waterbus (vaporetto) heading for the Santa Lucia train station (10:40 AM) as we were to take the train and spend the second part of the day in Padua.
  • We got off at the San Toma stop (10:56 AM) and visited two glorious churches – the Basilica Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari – aka the Frari - and The Church of Saint Roch (a number of interesting Tintoretto‘s paintings; St. Roch’s relics rest in the church – he is a patron saint of Venice) with the adjacent Scuola Grande di San Rocco (numerous Tintoretto‘s paintings). This was in the area where we got lost a night before, but this time we didn’t have any problem to find the directions. Around 11:40 AM we started our walk back to the vaporetto stop and then continued the Grand Canal trip from San Toma to Ferrovia-Scalzi stop/Santa Lucia Train Station:

    (12:16 PM), Ca’ d’Oro (12:20 PM), Casino di Venezia (12:23 PM). At 12:32 PM the water bus reached the Ferrovia Scalzi stop/Santa Lucia Train Station.

    Delivery in Venice

    Delivery in Venice

  • We already had the tickets for the train to Padua, bought “in bulk” at the travel agency at Termini in Rome. There are many trains going from Venice to Padua – one in every 10 or so minutes on average. We could take either 12:57 PM or 1:04 PM with our €2.90 tickets. We took the first one and after a short trip we came to Padua (1:31 PM). We were ready to do “Padua in Four Hours” tour – another great itinerary created by Rick Steves and described in his “Italy 2009″ book.
  • At the kiosk in the front of the train station we bought the €1.00 tickets and jumped on the bus that took us to the

    Basilica of St. Anthony, Padua

    Basilica of St. Anthony, Padua

    It was a short, about 10-minute long trip and at 1:50 PM we got off at “the Santo” stop (Via Businello/Prato della Valle) a short walk from the Basilica dedicated to St. Anthony, one of the most popular saints, a powerful patron saint who was born in Lisbon, but died in Padua. Like other pilgrims/tourists, we left our prayers at the St. Anthony’s tomb and admired the Basilica’s most prized relics – St. Anthony’s tongue and his vocal chords and the fragments of the True Cross (in the Chapel of the Reliquaries).

  • Bought some St. Anthony-related souvenirs and then lunch at Pane Al Santo (2:50 PM).
  • Walk: Via del Santo – Via San Francesco – University of Padua (3:25 PM) – Copernicus and Galileo studied there!
  • Walk: Piazza delle Erbe – Piazza della Frutta – Palazzo della Ragione – PAM supermarket (3:40 PM) – Piazzetta Cappellato Pedrocchi /Via 8 Febraio (3:50 PM) – Piazza Cavour – Via Santa Lucia (3:55 PM)
  • Walk further north: Corso Garibaldi – Piazza Garibaldi (3:57 PM) – Poste Italiane (4:02 PM)
  • Found the Musei Civici Eremitani (4:10 PM) and the Musei Civici Eremitani/Scrovegni Chapel ticket desk where we picked up the tickets we bought online on August 4  (€12.00 per person – to see the famous Scrovegni Chapel (link to the official website) plus less exciting exhibits at the Civic Museum and its Multimedia Room). We had to leave our bags at the free bag check (including the cameras – no photos were allowed).

    Amazing (inside!) Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

    Amazing (inside!) Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

  • Our entry time to see the Scrovegni Chapel was 5:30 PM, but around 5:20 PM we were allowed to walk through the garden towards the chapel. Got there in 2 minutes, but had to wait outside the “body-adjustment” room; then spent about 20 or so minutes there; practically until prior group finished. In the anteroom we watched a video about the Chapel while our bodies’ humidity was adjusting to the level inside the Chapel. The Scrovegni Chapel contains Giotto’s precious frescoes painted on 38 panels depicting the life story of Jesus. This was one of the most exciting attractions we experienced during our trip to Italy. We had to move rather quickly around the Chapel to see all of the frescoes within the allotted 15 minutes. See the Wikipedia’s coverage of the Scrovegni – much more info and pictures than on the official website.
  • Walked back to the Musei Civici Eremitani to get our bags and buy some souvenirs. It was 6:20 PM, so we knew that it would take us a bit more than four hours in Rick’s itinerary to see the Padua’s biggest attractions. But it really didn’t matter because we were already close to the station and had the tickets for the 7:03 PM train stopping in Padua on its way from Venice to Rome (the tickets were €56.10 plus fee, bought few days ago at the travel agency at the Termini station).
  • Continued our walk through Padua: Corso Garibaldi – Garibaldi monument (6:25 PM) – McDonald’s (looked interesting, but we didn’t  enter… 6:35 PM). We reached the train station at 6:38 PM. The Padua tour took us actually five hours, not four as in Rick’s plan, but we were very satisfied with all that we saw there – including the world-class attractions such as the Basilica of St. Anthony, the University of Padua and especially the Giotto’s frescoes at the Scrovegni Chapel. It was still very hot – the display at the station was showing 35 C degrees.
  • Having few spare minutes, we got some water and food at the conveniently located Despar supermarket - it was just adjacent to the station.
  • Walked to the platform; got there at 7 PM. Train to Termini arrived on time from Venice and we left Padua at 7:03 PM.
  • The train arrived at the Termini station at 11:10 PM.
  • Tired, but very excited about what we saw in last two days, we took the bus from Piazza dei Cinquecento to Piazza Fiume and from there had a short walk to the Executive Hotel.
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