Again, the places I expect the least from always impress. I went to Padua to visit the Scrovegni Chapel because I somehow missed it two years ago. I allowed myself a few hours in town before catching a speeding train back to Milan to return to school. The Chapel is well worth the trouble of a reservation, arriving early, sitting in a pre-visit chamber all to stand for fifteen minutes in the middle of a chapel covered entirely by frescoes completed seven hundred years ago. I don't have any photos because 1)you can find photos online and 2) the photos always look too small. It was amazing.
The chapel is in the middle of the former Roman Forum, ye olde center of town, which is now a public garden. Padua is built on layers and layers of time. They even seem to stack up the plants. Spring is very kind here when it is not raining.
There is also a sculpture garden, which, echoing the theme of the city, piles old and new all together in haphazard harmony. I don't know why it works. But the 1960's style office buildings and old venetian style houses stacked up together made for a nice afternoon of walking the wrong way over and over.
