Day Nine—Padua & Back to Rome & Back Home

We spent our last full day in Italy in Padua, the setting place of The Taming of the Shrew (Bianca's play). First, we checked out of our cute Verona apartment and they let us leave our bags at the manager's office. We took the train again, then started walking.

Padua is a university town so we started at the university. On our walk there, we came across this beautiful flowering tree (I wish I knew what kind of tree it was. The flowers were gorgeous!)

We spent half the day hunting down bathrooms. We had an amazing lunch at a small local restaurant called Osteria de Capo. I had the white vegetarian lasagnette. We all had great meals, actually.

And the restaurant's bathroom had just the hole in the middle of the tile. Portia really had to go so I took off her shoes, everything, and held her over the hole. I decided I didn't need to use the restroom that much.

Next we wandered back to a circular park, crowned with statues and surrounded by a canal.

We visited several churches and Basilicas and the girls lit a candle for Grandma Quigley. The stone was so cold on the floor that we stayed for a while and cooled off, letting our feet settle from all the walking.

We did a bit more shopping, then took the train back to Verona.

When we got back to Verona, we stopped at a gelateria the LDS sister missions (who we ran into several times in Verona) recommended, called La Romano Gelato. Wow, it was amazing!!! They filled the tip of the cone with hot nutella and I ordered the white mint (Menta Bianca) and chocolate. Best gelato in Italy, methinks! 

We walked back to get our bags, tried a type of soda called Crodino (ginger & orange), then stopped for dinner at Bella Napoli Pizzaria since we had nowhere else to go until our train left late that night.I had the Bianca quatro formaggio one last time. I'm really going to miss the pizza here.

Our train (a sleeping train) left at 11:30pm. Mom, Bianca, Portia and I all shared a 4-person bunk room. It was loud and hot and I didn't get much sleep because the train kept stopping and going all night, and I was worried Portia was going to roll out of the top bunk. We arrived in Rome at 6am. Nothing was open so we went to airport. Trip over. We'll miss you, Beautiful Italy!

Doors of the Day: