Via Romea Germanica Day 77: Piazzola di Brenta - Padova (Arcella)

Since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arriv’d for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy, [...]
Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.

- William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, I, i

Another day following the river Brenta. Not always visible, but always there, on the other side of the trees or just over the fields. The Via Romea Germanica basically follows the Brenta cycling route, which follows the river, cutting across a few of the bends in its course. 

Again the route was mostly in the shade, and that and the breeze made it possible to walk despite the heat. In a couple of places the cycling route is closed due to construction work. At the first of these spots, just after crossing the bridge at Limena, I followed the recommended detour, posted on the spot in the form of a QR code that takes you to a Google Maps page showing the route; but the detour is designed for cyclists, not walkers, and took me onto a road with no shoulder. As soon as I found an alternative footpath I took it - but it brought me back onto the cycling route. I hoped I was past the point closed for construction, but it turned out it wasn't; I came up against an impenetrable barrier, with machines digging on the other side of it. I backtracked a little and found a footpath that led to the road, passing through private property, but obviously used by the locals to get around the construction site - the grass was well trodden down, and I met a man passing through. The gate leading out of the private property and onto the road was closed, but not locked, so I could open it and go through in order to walk around the closed section on the road.

Back on the cycling route, several kilometres later, at Pontevigodarzere I came to another "road closed" sign and another barrier - with pedestrians and cyclists ignoring it and going on through. I asked a local couple out walking, and they said it was possible to go through. So I continued on and in fact when I came to the actual construction site - this time there was no-one working there but it was well boarded up and blocked off - it was possible to take a brief detour around it, crossing the adjacent basketball courts and then walking around the perimeter of the construction site to access a footpath that passes below the railway bridge. I provide these details in case they could be useful to anyone currently walking the Via Romea Germanica route.

After crossing the Brenta on the road bridge at Pontevigodarzere, I was practically in the suburbs of Padova. The rest was urban walking, passing below the highway and then the motorway and into the outskirts of the city. I stopped in a small park to eat a hard-boiled egg and some fruit and decide what to do next: I couldn't get into my accommodation, on the northern side of Padova, until four, and it was only one-thirty. The hottest hours of the day! I didn't want to walk into the city centre with my backpack on, so I looked on Google Maps to see what there was in the area. Next to the stadium there's a sports centre with a public swimming pool! The perfect way to spend the hot afternoon hours. I turned off the Via Romea route at the stadium, purchased a pool admission and a bathing cap, wedged my backpack into a locker, and spent an hour happily splashing about. 

The smaller of the two outdoor pools

The adjacent Padova football stadium 

When a teenage boys' swimming team invaded the pool to start training, I decided I'd had enough and moved on to the poolside bar for a beer and a packet of crisps. Swimming is the perfect way to end a long day of walking in hot weather, and imagine, I had just been thinking, I really need to start doing some swimming when I get home, to develop some muscles in my arms to match the ones in my legs! 😆

Much refreshed by my time at the pool, I dressed in my rest clothes, packed away my wet swimming things along with my sweaty hiking things, and walked another two kilometres to my accommodation.  Casa di Accoglienza Terrani is one of three accommodations called "Casa a Colori", run by a non-profit social cooperative that provides training and job opportunities for people in difficult circumstances while at the same time offering low-cost accommodation options for visitors, students and temporary residents in the city. Basically a simple, low-cost hotel room, close to the train station and within walking distance of the city centre. The facility I'm staying at is right on the Via Romea Germanica route coming into Padova, next to the church and parish centre of Saint Anthony of Arcella, built on the spot where Saint Anthony of Padua died on June 13, 1231.

Saint Anthony of Padua 

Saint Anthony of Padua was not actually called Anthony, nor was he from Padua. Fernando Martins de Bulhões was a monk from Lisbon. 

Fernando joined the order of the Canons Regular at the age of fifteen, and went to Coimbra to study. He was deeply impressed by the simple lifestyle of a group of Franciscan friars who had settled outside the city; this was while Saint Francis was still alive, only eleven years after the founding of the Franciscan order, so it was quite a revolutionary move. Fernando joined the friars and took on the name Anthony, after Saint Anthony the Great of Egypt. Fernando/Anthony ended up in Italy only because his ship was blown off course when attempting to return to Portugal after a voyage to Morocco. His gift for preaching brought him to the attention of Saint Francis, who put him in charge of the instruction of new friars in 1224. 

Anthony had a real gift for preaching, and travelled around Provence and northern Italy giving his sermons. He was appointed Provincial Superior for northern Italy and chose Padua as his seat. 

In 1231 Anthony became ill with ergotism, a once common disease caused by eating rye contaminated with the fungus Claviceps purpurea; he died on June 13, 1231, at the age of 35. He was canonised less than a year after his death, in one of the most rapid canonisation processes in history; construction of the Basilica that holds his remains, commonly referred to in Padua simply as "Il Santo", began in 1232 and was completed in 1301. The church at Arcella, rebuilt in Neogothic style about a hundred years ago, encases the small building, a hospice run by the Poor Clares, sister order of the Franciscan friars, in which Saint Anthony died.

The church at Arcella

Casa Accoglienza Terrani 

Arcella was originally a separate village outside the city gates of Padova, though the name is now used to refer to the suburban district of Padova north of the train station. The district includes a large park, where residents hold a summer festival running from June through to the end of August, with events and food and drink stands among the trees. On the programme today was a yoga lesson at six-thirty, which I joined (minus yoga mat, practicing directly on the grass) before dining on a giant salad and a small ice cream. The perfect ending to the day!

Piazzola sul Brenta - Padova 22 km