Felix visits Padova and Venice

May 7 - Day 53

Today my friend Felix came down to Padova for the day and to spend the night. Me and dad met him at the train station at 10.22 in the morning and took him around the town, doing pretty much the same things as the day before: exploring the piazzas and walking around the rest of Padova. We got lost for a little bit but eventually made it to the Basillica San Antonio, a cathedral with some nice courtyards.

Felix, having been in Italy for over 3 months already, was telling me about how some cathedrals display the preserved shrunken heads of some of their most holy men. This made me a little bit excited about visiting a cathedral in quite a while.

Unfortunately, there wasn't one here, just someone's jaw bone which isn't nearly as interesting.

After this, we went for lunch in one of the town's piazzas. It was a long and leisurely one, mainly because the waiter forgot to bring out the bill. Since there was not a whole lot more to do, we retired to the hotel to watch a movie on TV.

Before dinner, Felix and I went for a stroll to determine whether or not the hotel really was in the middle of nowhere. It was. But after a bit of walking, we found a suburban area to explore so we went to the supermarket and bought some chocolate.

May 8 - Day 54

This morning we headed to Venice. The train ride was about 50 minutes and our carriage was full of screaming children so that was pretty fun. The weather was very nice, which was fortunate because according to Felix, Venice smells awful when it rains and the canals start to flood.

We stepped out of the station and were greeted by the city's grand canal and that was very cool. The crowds in Venice are just as dense as the ones in Florence were, so navigating the narrow streets took a while and because this is Venice you have to cross a bridge every hundred metres or so to get over the many many canals. One of the things I really like about Venice is that there are no cars anywhere so you don't have to worry about being hit by a chunk of metal travelling at high speeds. The only thing you have to dodge is foot traffic which is not a problem because most people don't weigh a thousand kilograms and those who do fortunately aren't able to move at 50 kilometers an hour.

We walked over the Grand Bridge which is really just like a regular bridge except grand.

Eventually we reached St Mark's square, the most crowded of the lot but understandably so, as the buildings there are quite neat.

The waterfront is more spacious than the cramped streets so we took a walk along there. It is also has very nice scenery especially on a nice day like this one.

We walked further and further along until we had left the tourist crowds behind. We found a nice street filled with restaurants but decided to go for a walk through some gardens before having lunch.

So we walked through some gardens and then had lunch, which was accompanied by the operatic singing of two drunk guys standing at the bar who were suprisingly not too bad.

After this, we slowly made our way back to the train station on foot (taking the waterbus is suprisingly expensive and we had a lot of lunch to walk off). We parted ways with Felix at the station, most likely until I see him back in NZ, unless his class happens to take a trip to eastern Europe at some point in the the next few weeks. We caught the train first class back to Padova. The seats were comfier and the number of screaming children was minimal.