Padova, The Colli Euganei National Park

Exploring the Veneto and the Province of Padova

Travelling near Padua, on a clear day, it is hard not to notice the cone shaped hills of the Colli Euganei sitting out on the plain, just south of the city. The Colli Euganei, named after the indigenous people that once inhabited the region, were created by volcanic movement, and were made into a National Park in 1989.

The park covers 1900 square hectares and includes 15 communities, with Monselice, Este, and the Thermal Springs around Abano being most well know areas. Making this area a national park and has protected it from over development, and it has become an oasis of wilderness in within the industrial triangle of the Veneto. Wooded hills of oak, hazel, walnut, delicate Medittanean marquis are intermixed with terraced lands of fruit and olive trees, and grape vines. The history of the hills, the gastronomic tradition, and the slower off the path lifestyle makes the area perfect for the visitor who wishes to take a couple of days to unwind and immerse themselves in relaxation.

 The hills are well know for local farm products, that can be enjoyed in one of the many agritourism (farm house restaurant). The park is an unique Wine Zone and has 13 various DOC wines located throughout the area. Annual local events and festivals center around the harvest times and there are some specialities like Montagnana DOP ham and Seprino wine that should be tasted.

 

For anyone loving nature and a relaxing atmosphere the area has a wonderful mix of historical and artistic heritage within the Park; hamlets, castles, fortifications and religious buildings such as hermitages and convents, Este, Monselice and Montagnana, with their medieval walls; Arquà Petrarca, a fascinating ancient medieval hamlet; Luvigliano, Galzignano and Battaglia Terme with their splendid Veneto villas; the Abbey of Praglia and the Hermitage of Monte Rua.

The entire territory of the Hills offers walkers a myriad of paths immersed in nature, which you can enjoy with a stroll or by bike. There is an excellent climbing site in the center of the park, near Teolo, that has over 345+ bolted routes. After a hard day of activity you can make an appointment at one of the Euganei Thermal Baths, world-famous for the unique properties of the mud and treatments that can be enjoyed in the facilities of Abano, Montegrotto, Battaglia, Galzignano and Teolo.

Arqua Petrarca in the Euganei Hills

 Arqua Petrarca is located in the Euganei hills and still has many of the medieval homes and buildings.  It was renamed to add Petrarca after the Arezzo born poet Francesco Petrarca  moved there and spent the last days of his life.  Petrarca's small house can be visited in the village.

The land area and town became part of the Venetian Republic and there and you still see the influence of the Venetian's. 

Today the village is quiet and relaxed in the morning hours during the weekdays, and but in early afternoon there is an invasion of tour buses from the Abano thermal spa's.  Also on weekends there is an increase of walkers and cyclist passing through.  But everything seems to cease in early evening.

When biking through Padua be sure to visit the Scrovegni Chapel

Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

Giotto had to be creative to overcome the obstacles caused by the chapel's architecture -- you can even see how he extended the wall paintings up into the ceiling to try to balance it all!

Located an easy 25- or 45-minute train ride from Venice, Padua has a lot to boast about: mythical ties to the city of Troy, the second-oldest university in Italy (and one where Galileo taught)… and an incredible 14th-century chapel that’s one of Italy’s top sites for pilgrims. Art history pilgrims, that is.

The chapel was built by Enrico Scrovegni in 1302, after his father’s practice of lending out money at super-high interest rates — something seen as so sinful, it landed the man in Dante’s Inferno — filled him with such guilt he built a chapel with the family’s earnings. (He dedicated it to to the “Virgin of Charity”).

Scrovegni commissioned the Florentine painter Giotto for the frescoes. The result is the earliest work that’s accepted as being by Giotto’s own hand. For art historians, that means it’s the keystone for deciding if later pieces (like those in the Basilica of San Francesco, below) were by Giotto, too. Like Michelangelo more than two centuries later, Giotto had to grapple with how to lay his fresco cycle out on a barrel-vaulted building. And, like Michelangelo, it’s fair to say he did, well, a pretty good job!

The space on the right, planned that way by Giotto, makes it look like poor Joachim is being thrust into an empty, lonely abyss

The whole story of the New Testament is laid out here, starting with the heartbreaking Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple. The panel shows Joachim, the Virgin’s father, being literally pushed out of the temple by a priest, Joachim’s offering rejected because he remains childless; the anguish on Joachim’s face is palpable.

The narrative continues through to Christ’s life, with the famous frescoes of the Lamentation andKiss of Judas.

Giotto was a master of emotion -- just look at the anguish on Mary's face

Don’t miss the Last Judgment, either, a fantasy of all the horrific tortures that await the damned. Few paintings in art history could be more frightening! This was one piece that influenced Michelangelo for his own version of the Last Judgment.

A detail of Giotto's Last Judgment, complete with a monster eating the damned. Eek!

In all of the frescoes, you can see just why Giotto was so groundbreaking, he’s known as one of the fathers of the Renaissance. Giotto’s use of space and volume, and his two-point perspective scheme (which unites both painting and architecture in the tricky-to-paint chapel), show an understanding of perspective that heralded the beginning of the Renaissance.

It’s the emotion of the figures, though, that really set Giotto apart, making him one of the only artists of his day who knew how to paint saints to look and interact like real people. And, almost 800 years later, Giotto’s ability to invoke emotion still takes your breath away.