Padua Geography

Padua lies in the eastern Veneto, on the Po Valley plain between the Adige and the Brenta, with the Bacchiglione river running through the city itself and a network of canals that once carried freight and now largely doesn't. The centre is essentially flat, which is why it is so walkable and why bicycles are everywhere.

The one interruption to that flatness is the Colli Euganei, the Euganean Hills, rising abruptly from the plain south-west of the city. They are volcanic in origin, unrelated to the Alps, and their geology is the direct cause of the hot springs at Abano Terme and Montegrotto Terme -- rainwater falling on the Prealps travels underground for decades before surfacing here at around 80°C.

Padua's relationship with Venice is geographic before it is historical. The Brenta canal links the two, and the villas along the Riviera del Brenta were built by Venetian families precisely because the waterway made the mainland reachable. The lagoon is close enough that Padua functioned as Venice's agricultural hinterland and its university town at once.