Padua stands on the Bacchiglione River, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Venice and 29 km (18 miles) southeast of Vicenza. The Brenta River, which once ran through the city, still touches the northern districts. Its agricultural setting is the Venetian Plain (Pianura Veneta). To the city’s south west lies the Euganaean Hills, praised by Lucan and Martial, Petrarch, Ugo Foscolo, and Shelley.

It hosts the University of Padua, founded in 1222, where Galileo Galilei was a lecturer.

The city is picturesque, with a dense network of arcaded streets opening into large communal piazze, and many bridges crossing the various branches of the Bacchiglione, which once surrounded the ancient walls like a moat.

Padua is the setting for most of the action in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. There is a play by the Victorian writer Oscar Wilde entitled The Duchess of Padua.

The city is also known for being the city where Saint Anthony, a Portuguese Franciscan (Anthony of Padua, also known as Anthony of Lisbon – city where he was born in 1195), spent part of his life and died in 1231.