Padua: walls

Porta Altinate

I read on the Padua Tourism website that the city has about 11km of walls and as an enthusiast for walled towns I thought we ought to investigate. The first discovery was that there are two substantial gates whose role was to protect the medieval city. The medieval Porta Altinate (above) is on the east side and dates from 1286.

On the north side of the centre along via Dante is the Porta Molino, with the Ponte Molino beyond it.

Having got this far we decided to walk to the outer walls and proceed clockwise to get a sense of what they were like. We had already done some sightseeing, so we weren't minded to tackle the whole 11km.

The outer walls date from the early 16th century. Padua was at that point part of the Venetian empire and in 1509, during the War of the League of Cambrai, was temporarily occupied by the troops of Maximilian of Austria. They soon departed but the Venetian Senate was galvanised into action to build new walls.

Beyond the bridge lies the 13th century Ezzelino Tower:  an external defense for the medieval walls.

Looking at the map we decided to head towards one of the northwestern gates, Porta Trento along via Beata Pellegrino. Sadly, there wasn't much left of the gate. We headed anti clockwise along via Raggio di Sole and were enchanted by this beautiful building of 1914 backing on to the walls.

 A bit further on, a long section of wall gave us a clear idea of the defences.

This section of wall ended at Porta Savanarola which dates from 1530. It is clear that there was a moat outside the walls. There is a modern breach in the walls next to the gate and this showed us their current thickness - about a metre.

We passed a couple of former bastions and walked along to the next gate, Porta Giovanni (1528). This wasn't much fun as a two lane road was on our left and there wasn't much of a path on the right hand side by the wall.  The gate was quite pleasing and was built in a similar style to the Porta Savanarola.

We felt we had gained a good sense of the walls now and ended the project at this point. There are other similar gates further round the walls and various bastions which look more dramatic viewed from outside the walls. 

We headed back in towards the city centre and ended with a lovely bonus: a view of  La Specola, the Astronomical Observatory. It was built by the Venetian Republic in 1767 on Torlonga, one of the ancient castle's towers, an imposing defensive structure of the early Middle Ages. On west side there is a third medieval gate. The waterway - which seems to need some tidying up - is the Tranco Maestro.
 

Conditions: warm, but hazy.

Rating: four stars.