Padua has the second oldest university in Italy, founded in 1222 by scholars walking out of Bologna, and Galileo taught there for eighteen years. It has the world's oldest academic botanical garden still in its original location, planted in 1545. It has the Prato della Valle, which at around 90,000 square metres is one of the largest squares in Europe, an ellipse ringed by a canal and 78 statues. And it has the Scrovegni Chapel, where Giotto painted a fresco cycle between 1303 and 1305 that is generally taken as the moment Western painting changed.
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Most people see it as a day trip from Venice, half an hour away, and that is a mistake in one specific respect: the chapel cannot be walked into. Pack for a flat, arcaded city with a damp valley climate, and book the chapel before you do anything else.
What Makes Padua Different to Pack For
The Scrovegni Chapel has hard rules
Entry is by timed slot, booked in advance, and it sells out. You wait in a climate controlled airlock for around fifteen minutes while humidity is drawn off your clothes and body, then get fifteen or twenty minutes inside depending on the session. Large bags are not permitted and must go in the lockers.
The airlock is cool and the chapel is cool. Wearing a damp coat in from the rain makes the wait less pleasant, and a small bag rather than a large one saves a queue at the lockers.
Po valley damp
Winter runs 0°C to 8°C with fog that sits for days. Summer runs 19°C to 31°C, humid and still, and Padua is close enough to the lagoon to get mosquitoes. Spring and autumn are the best seasons and also the wettest.
A merino wool base layer for women is the right answer to damp cold, and the arcades mean you can cross much of the centre without getting wet, which is exactly why they were built.
A flat, arcaded, student city
Padua is on a plain, the centre is covered by porticoes on many streets, and around 60,000 students live here, which sets the tone. It is cheaper and less pressured than Venice and considerably more ordinary in the good sense.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
The Padua Packing List
Footwear
Flat and comfortable, with a sole for wet stone. The city is walked and cycled and there is no gradient anywhere. Nothing needs a boot unless you are going into the Euganean Hills south of the city, where waterproof hiking shoes suit the volcanic paths.
Clothing
Layers with a water resistant outer. Covered shoulders and knees for the Basilica di Sant'Antonio, which is a major pilgrimage church receiving several million visitors a year and where the code is enforced at the door, and for the Duomo and the Baptistery.
A small bag rather than a rucksack, for the chapel and for the basilica, both of which restrict what you can carry in.
For the chapel
Something you can stand in comfortably for fifteen minutes in a cool airlock, then twenty in a cool chapel. Not a wet coat if you can help it. Glasses rather than contacts if dry conditioned air bothers you.
For winter
A packable rain jacket or water resistant coat rather than heavy wool, since valley fog soaks slowly. The arcades help a great deal.
For summer
A wide brim sun hat for the Prato, which is enormous and has almost no shade, and mosquito repellent for the evenings, which are a genuine nuisance near the canals.
What to Wear at Key Sites
The Scrovegni Chapel
Giotto's cycle covers the whole interior: the life of the Virgin and of Christ in three tiers, the Last Judgement on the entrance wall, and a dado of monochrome virtues and vices. The blue of the ceiling is lapis lazuli.
Practically: book online well ahead, arrive early for the airlock, and expect twenty minutes at most inside. No large bags, no flash. Evening double sessions in high season give longer inside and are worth seeking out. The ticket includes the Musei Civici next door, which most people skip and should not.
The Basilica di Sant'Antonio
Il Santo, with eight domes and two campanili, holds the tomb of Saint Anthony of Padua and draws pilgrims year round. Donatello's bronze altar and his equestrian Gattamelata outside are the art historical reasons to go.
Practically: strictly enforced dress code, no photography inside, and it is busy with people who are there to pray rather than to look. Behave accordingly. Free entry.
Prato della Valle and the Orto Botanico
The great elliptical square with its canal and statues, and next to it the botanical garden of 1545, a UNESCO site, where Goethe saw a palm that set him thinking about plant morphology and which is still growing.
Practically: the Prato is open and unshaded and hosts a large Saturday market. The garden includes a modern glasshouse with five climate zones; allow a couple of hours.
The Palazzo della Ragione and the markets
A medieval hall with an enormous keel shaped roof and a fresco cycle of astrological subjects, sitting between two market squares, Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza della Frutta, which have traded since the middle ages and still do every morning.
Practically: the markets are morning only. Beneath the hall is a covered arcade of food shops. This is where the city eats and drinks, and the student aperitivo here is an institution.
The other frescoes
Padua's UNESCO listing is not the Scrovegni Chapel alone. It covers eight buildings holding fresco cycles painted between 1302 and 1397, a group listed together because they show what happened in the century after Giotto worked here. The Baptistery beside the Duomo, painted by Giusto de' Menabuoi, has a dome of the Paradise with several hundred figures and is, for many visitors, the more overwhelming room of the two.
The others include the Oratorio di San Giorgio and the Scoletta del Santo by the basilica, the Palazzo della Ragione, and the Eremitani church, whose Mantegna frescoes were largely destroyed by an Allied bomb in 1944 and partly reassembled from fragments.
Practically: the Urbs Picta card covers the set and costs little more than the chapel alone. The Baptistery in particular takes ten minutes and is almost always empty, which after the timed scramble for the Scrovegni is a striking contrast.
Day trips
Venice is half an hour by train. Vicenza, with Palladio's buildings, is twenty five minutes. The Euganean Hills have thermal spas at Abano and Montegrotto and the house where Petrarch died at Arqua.
What Not to Bring
Leave the plan to see the Scrovegni Chapel without booking, which will not work. Leave a large rucksack for a day in the centre.
Leave a heavy wool coat in favour of something that sheds damp. Leave the assumption that Padua is only a Venice day trip; it is cheaper to stay here and commute the other way.
Essential Resources for Women in Padua
Emergency numbers in Italy: 112 is the single European emergency number and the main line in Italy. The older numbers still work: police 113, ambulance 118, fire 115. Operators on 112 handle English.
Tourist support: Italy has no separate tourist police. The Polizia di Stato questura in Padua and the Carabinieri both take reports from visitors. A stolen passport needs a written denuncia filed in person before the consulate can act.
US Embassy and consulate: the embassy is in Rome at Via Vittorio Veneto 121, telephone +39 06 46741, at it.usembassy.gov. The relevant consulate for the Veneto is the US Consulate General in Milan, with a consular agency in Venice half an hour away. Enrol in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at step.state.gov before you travel.
Main hospital or clinic: the Azienda Ospedale Universita Padova is a large teaching hospital with a 24 hour pronto soccorso and is one of the better equipped in northern Italy. EU visitors should carry the European Health Insurance Card; everyone else needs travel insurance, since Italy treats in an emergency and then bills a non resident.
Official health authority: the Italian Ministry of Health at salute.gov.it.
US State Department travel advisory for Italy: current advisory level and detail. Read it directly rather than relying on this page.
UK FCDO travel advice for Italy: entry requirements, safety and health guidance.
Official tourism authority: ENIT, the Italian national tourist board, at italia.it, with the Padua visitor board at turismopadova.it for the Scrovegni booking system and the Padova Urbs Picta card, which covers the chapel and the other fresco cycles that make up the city's UNESCO listing.
Solo women safety assessment: Padua is a safe and comfortable city for a woman travelling alone. It is a prosperous Veneto university city with a very large student population, which means the centre is busy and lively in the evening, eating alone is unremarkable, and the aperitivo culture around Piazza delle Erbe is social and unthreatening. Violent crime against visitors is rare and street harassment is uncommon. Petty theft is the main issue and follows the usual pattern, concentrated around the railway station and on the Venice trains, which are crowded with day trippers and are a known pickpocketing route; a closed bag worn in front handles it. The station area itself is the one part of Padua that feels different after dark, being run down and quiet once services thin out, so take a taxi rather than walking from there late. Cycling is normal and safe, with bike theft the commonest local crime. The practical hazards are weather rather than people: winter fog reduces visibility to a few metres and makes crossing roads genuinely dangerous since drivers cannot see pedestrians, and wet stone under the arcades is slippery. In summer, mosquitoes near the canals are a real nuisance in the evening and worth repellent.
Reading On
Padua holds one of the handful of genuinely pivotal works in European art and is a cheaper, calmer base than the city half an hour east. The Italy travel guide for women is the parent for the whole country and covers the regions, the seasons and the trains, and the Italy packing list for women covers a multi region trip. Nearby, the Venice travel guide for women covers the lagoon city and the Verona packing list for women the other great Veneto city, with the Lake Garda packing list for women beyond it. North, the Bolzano packing list for women and the Cortina d'Ampezzo packing list for women reach the Dolomites. South, the Bologna packing list for women and Modena packing list for women cover Emilia. The travel packing guide for women is the parent for all destinations. For why merino is the right layer against Po valley damp, the best merino wool base layers for women explains the fibre, and the Roman Trail collection is where the tops themselves live.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
