Padua and the Scrovegni Chapel One Hour West

Padua (Padova) is thirty minutes from Venice by regional train, and the Scrovegni Chapel — a small, unassuming building that contains the most important fresco cycle in Western art — is the reason to go. Giotto painted the interior between 1303 and 1305 with 38 scenes from the lives of the Virgin Mary and Christ, and the frescoes are so revolutionary — their use of perspective, emotion, and naturalistic space — that art historians consider them the beginning of the Renaissance, seventy years before Brunelleschi and a century before Masaccio.

The chapel limits visitors to 25 at a time for 15-minute viewings, and the intimacy is appropriate: the room is small enough that the frescoes surround you, and the blue ceiling — painted with gold stars — arches overhead like a sky that Giotto designed to replace the one outside.

Practical notes: Book online at least two weeks in advance — the time slots sell out. The Padua city center around the Piazza delle Erbe market and the Basilica of Sant'Antonio is worth the afternoon. The train from Venice Santa Lucia takes 25 minutes and runs every 15 minutes.