Hotel Casa del Pellegrino

The bed was lumpy, and hot water took the usual while to arrive. Be ready for a jolt when switching from the handheld shower to the overhead spray. Otherwise, it’s well run, warm in winter, reasonably quiet day and night, and the WiFi worked fine. I didn’t try the TV. The location by the great basilica del Santo is brilliant. Sitting at a nearby cafe at different times of day, with cappuccino, good Italian wine, spritz, or Negroni, and watching the sun on the Byzantine cupolas and Renaissance angles is a highlight. Donatello’s equestrian statue of the fierce warrior nicknamed “Honey Cat” was being restored, so I couldn’t see it. His beautiful narrative reliefs are on the high altar, which tourists can’t access. You can subtly ask a guard to let you through a side door into the sanctuary to see the reliefs on the back, where you’ll be inconspicuous. Without years of seminary training and priestly ordination, you may never get a close look at the front of the altar. The rich Basilica del Santo and the much larger cathedral of Padua near the splendid Prato della Valle aren’t in the actual town center. The Renaissance town council is at Palazzo della Ragione. There you’ll find department stores, high-end fashion boutiques, the 200-year-old grand cafe Pedrocchi, the classiest restaurants, history and science museums, an art museum showing Picasso and Modigliani, and the large Scrovegni Chapel, with nearly a hundred astonishing Giotto frescoes about the life of Christ and His Mother. It’s a good quarter-hour walk from Casa del Pellegrino. Staying longer and using two hotels might make sense. There are plenty of buses and taxis.