padua

The next morning, before the crack of dawn, Aaron and Lauren left for the airport. I was slightly awake as they got ready and packed up their stuff, but it turned out to be awesome that I was because when I heard the car doors closing in the street I decided to look out the window. So I looked out the window and what did I see? A whole bunch of homeless people snuggled up together on the sidewalk across the street. Kristy saw the same group that morning and over breakfast we both commented on how happy they all looked together, at least until she thought one of them was going to kill another one. I don't remember the details, but it was pretty funny hearing Kristy talk about what she saw. 

I went back to bed after my few moments of observation, and once a decent time came around, my alarm was supposed to go off. Emphasis on supposed to. I woke up to a knock on the door; it was Colby coming to ask if I was ready yet. Whoops. After some scrambling, I was ready and we ate breakfast at the hotel and were headed to the train station to catch a ride to Padua. 

Colby and I had a bit of an issue trying to get our rightful seats on the train. It turned out that the people in our seats had taken our seats hoping no one would sit there and had gotten their two friends to switch seats with two kids who were supposed to be in the seats across the table from us so all four of them could sit together, across a table from each other. We managed to get our seats back and the kids in their rightful seats across from us. The foursome was out of luck. The kids across from us were pretty funny, a brother and sister, and their mom was sitting behind them. We chatted with the three of them for a little while and then they listened to their music while we watched a movie on Colby's Kindle for the rest of the train ride.

Once we got to Padua (or Padova, as the Italians call it), we took a taxi to our hotel, the Belludi 37. 

This was the view out the door of the hotel.

And this is the view in the opposite direction down the street a little.

We dropped off our luggage and then went on a walk to explore the town and get some lunch. The four of us soon realized that eating lunch in Padua on a Sunday afternoon wasn't as easy as eating in Rome at practically any time--day or night. Restaurants and shops and cafes are closed at random times throughout the day, particularly in the afternoon from 2 to 5, or something like that. We ended up finding a small, fairly ghetto-looking place where we ate kebabs. Well that's what they called it anyway. It wasn't like any kebab I've ever eaten and it seemed a lot more like a burrito than anything else. Whatever.

Then we walked into the church you saw in the picture just above this. Although it doesn't look very simple from the next picture, it definitely was, especially compared to all the churches we'd seen in Rome. But ya know what? It was fantastic. At this point I'd started to really appreciate simplicity. Some of the churches in Rome are really gaudy and over the top, but this one had character without all the showy "look how powerful we are" stuff.

(Gotta love when the camera is accidentally on zoom! But seriously . . . I do. I think we look good in this very close photo.)

Later that night, after visiting a few other hot spots around town (including a climate-controlled chapel), we found somewhere to eat that happened to be called Brek, just like my nephew! 

It was so great because we were walking around town looking for somewhere to eat when either Ron or Kristy randomly asked an adorable older man where we could go. The man was so sweet that he actually walked us right to the door of Brek. I loved that. It was here that we watched the championship Euro Cup match that, if I remember correctly, was between Spain and Italy.

We ended up leaving the restaurant before the game was over and as we walked around the city we saw so many people out in the streets watching the game on TVs that were set up outside of other restaurants and bars. It was awesome. We kept walking and window shopping until we ended up in a park-type area where we sat down on a small wall and chatted until we went back to the hotel to go to bed. 

The next day we went to Venice, which I will blog about later, but on our last day in Padua, we took a walk first thing in the morning. Walking was one of my favorite things to do in this little college town, day or night, because it was so quaint and peaceful.

The four of us were sure to stop by the market that morning because we had heard a lot about it from our hosts at the hotel. It turns out there are three parts to the market in Padua: one is the meat and cheese market; one is the vegetable, fruit, and grain market; and one is the clothing and accessories market. Ron and Kristy went off to find Ron some stylish Italian clothes while Colby and I wandered around looking for a purse for me. We failed to find a decent one at a decent price in Venice the day before, so we were on a mission. Not only is my husband (then fiance) charmed, he completely spoils me. We ended up purchasing three things: a genuine leather purse (my absolute favorite thing that I brought back from Italy), a new pair of shoes, and a scarf. And yes, I did talk down the price of the scarf. All by myself. 

Once our 20-minute shopping spree was over, I met up with Kristy and we ventured off to the food markets to put a picnic together for our lunch while the boys went to pick up the rental car. I saw more types of beans, rice, risotto, and who knows what else than I had ever seen and the fruits and vegetables were gorgeous.

We picked up meat, cheese, and fruit for our road trip to the mountains and headed back to the hotel. Kristy and I made the unanimous decision to go a different way so we could see new things while we made our way back. We didn't really anticipate "new way" meaning "getting lost," but that's what happened. However, after not too long, we'd discovered this adorable bakery and dessert place that happened to be right around the corner from our hotel. It was quite convenient because then we were able to get rolls and dessert for our lunch! Capable. I think that just about sums us up.

Our significant others may or may not have released a sigh of relief when we showed up because they'd been waiting for us and had no idea when we'd be back. Shame on us for not specifying a time, I guess. Going on vacation and not having a working cell phone really does make you grateful for them and all the conveniences they provide. Anyway, all four of us had packed everything up that morning, so the boys already had all of our luggage loaded into the car (a manual make and model of car I'd never heard of) when we arrived. All we needed to do was hop in and off we went with our trusty driver and navigator!

Goodbye Padua! At least for now . . .