Wander & Wonder Travel Newsletter

Hey StoryHunter

Have you ever felt lost?

Like something is missing, even after all your journeys across the world?

Then Padua may be the perfect city for you.

Every year on 13 June, this Italian city honours Saint Anthony, who is the saint of lost things - whether it is a set of keys, a sense of direction, or something far harder to name.

So this week, take a trip to Padua and see whether - among its relics, rituals and quiet beauty - you might find something you did not know you were looking for.

Read on to learn about:

❔ The city of the three withouts

🗣️ The Stone of Shame

🏢 The 9/11 twisted steel beam

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Destination of the Week

Padua is worth visiting because it feels like several Italian cities folded into one.

It has: 

• the spiritual pull of the Basilica of Saint Anthony (where the saint's actual tongue is stored),
• and the artistic prestige in the Scrovegni Chapel (which was built directly over the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre) 

And then there is the wonderfully odd nickname. 

Padua is called "The city of the three withouts”, and it's because you can find a saint without a name, a café without doors, and a lawn without grass.

Yeah, it sounds weird.

But that's the charm.

Don't Miss

Inside the medieval building Palazzo della Ragione, you'll find one of Padua’s strangest surviving relics of public humiliation.

Pietra del Vituperio - or better known as the “Stone of Shame“.

In medieval Padua it was used to punish people who could'nt pay their debt.

They were forced to strip down to their underwear, sit on the stone before a crowd, and publicly renounce their worldly goods.

You can find the small block of dark stone in the corner of the great hall - but perhaps you shouldn't sit on it...

Did You Know?

Padua has a surprisingly direct link to 9/11.

At Memoria e Luce, you can see a twisted steel beam from the World Trade Center.

It is set inside a luminous glass structure, which is shaped like an open book.

The monument was created to honour the victims of the attacks.

You see, many of the first responders and victims who lost their lives in New York were of Italian ancestry. 

The idea was to turn a quiet spot by the water into one of the city’s most unexpected and moving places.

The Trendy Traveler Tip

If you seek a piece of true Italian cuisine, duck into Sotto il Salone, which is the market tucked beneath Palazzo della Ragione.

It’s one of the oldest covered markets in Europe, with historic shops, delicatessens, bars and butchers packed into two old corridors beneath the great civic hall.

Start with a spritz, look for a plate of thick, rough-textured pasta bigoli, and then snack your way through the city’s most atmospheric food stop.