Padua Plus app for iPhone and iPad

A constantly-updated travel planner and professionally-written guide. Conventional travel guides can be out of date as soon as they are printed. This is a totally different travel guide, built around a community of readers and travelers, including the author.

This app is built around superb professional travel writing, and the sharing of comments with other readers. See updates from other travelers and send in your own. The app has a Journal to keep your notes as you plan your trip, to which you can add photos, update during your trip, and keep forever alongside the outstanding guide content.

Italys northernmost zone, the Veneto includes Padua, Verona, Vicenza, plus Venice itself, which once ruled the area. Some 5,000 Renaissance villas still stand, many by Palladio. A food- and wine-lovers paradise, its also the most artistically rich region in Italy, and the most romantic, with the art of Giotto and Mantegna in Padua, the Roman ruins in Verona, the canals and palaces in Venice itself. Bellini, Tintoretto, Veronese and Titian worked here. Experience their art and be part of their world, with the insights of an insider. Every detail is here about the foods, the sights, the best places to stay and eat.Situated where the Brenta and the Bacchiglione Rivers converge, Padua was founded as a fisherman’s village in the fourth century BC. Later, during the Roman period, Patavium (as it was then known) was allied to the Romans against the Gauls and was one of the Roman Empire’s most prosperous towns. The 13th century gave birth to a university town that would become a burgeoning center of education and art in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, marked by luminaries such as Galileo, Dante, Giotto and Donatello. By the 16th century, the Serene Republic of Venice took Padua under its control. It later came under Napoleon’s control, followed by that of Austrians.Long considered one of Italy’s golden cities of art, this frescoed town exhibits many impressive works by great medieval and Renaissance artists and today is a spirited cultural center animated by university students, intellectuals, artists and travelers.

A comprehensive introductory section provides background on history, geography, climate, culture, when to go, transportation and planning. These very readable guides then take a region-by-region approach, plunging into the very heart of each area and the adventures offered, giving a full range of accommodations, shopping, restaurants for every budget, and festivals.