The traditional Christmas in Padua

The traditional Christmas in Padua certainly passes through the streets and squares of the historic centre, where there is a festive atmosphere everywhere. Usually the city's splendid buildings, such as Palazzo della Ragione or Palazzo Moroni, come to life with spectacular and Christmas animations that tell the story of the relationship between the city and astronomy.

Little and historic markets

Another Christmas tradition typical of the Veneto and Padua are the little and historic markets, something that immediately brings Christmas to life. Drinking the classic mulled wine while strolling among the stalls for the last gifts has become a ritual with the important task of strengthening and reinforcing our human relationships. This drink, for those who don't know, is served as a warm glass of red wine spiced with cloves and flavoured with orange.

Christmas traditional dishes

Once the walking tour is finished, the matter becomes serious and thoughts immediately turn to what to cook for Christmas. Padua's cosmopolitan soul have been influenced over the centuries by neighbouring cities with which it frequently exchanged goods, ingredients and, consequently, culinary influences.

The Venetian tables prepared for the festive season cannot be lacking of:

• A simple but hot dish such as pasta and fagioli venetian style, with beans and pasta.
• A first course with bigoli, a type of fresh pasta typical of Padua: the history of bigoli dates back to the 17th century when a genius chef applied for a patent for a tool to make this type of long, thick, rough-drawn pasta. This type of pasta is well suited to rich sauces.
• The Venetian style liver, a dish based on small pieces of liver cooked with onion, but beware, strictly from Chioggia.
• Gran bollito alla padovana is made with mixed meats. While in other regions boiled meat was considered an elegant and banqueting dish, in Padua it was only served in certain seasons of the year (autumn and winter), using livestock that could easily be replaced or that would have had to be slaughtered anyway. This was also the favourite dish of Galileo Galilei, who used to go to Abano to buy his favourite meat !
• Torta Pazientina is the typical cake of Padua, although not as popular because it is slightly elaborate and rich in ingredients. It consists of two layers of shortcrust pastry, a layer of citadel polenta (or sponge cake) and two layers of zabaglione cream... all of which is then covered with hazelnut buttercream and chocolate curls.

Once Christmas lunches and dinners are over, another popular holiday in Padua is Epiphany. On the night of 6 January, many towns transform their squares into a magical, warm atmosphere with the lighting of bonfires. This night, known as the 'night of pan e vin', is a moment strongly felt by the population and has become a strong tourist attraction over the years.
It is the night of the Epiphany, or the night of "pan e vin": an ancient tradition, which is renewed every year on the eve of 6 January with the lighting of the bonfires, transforming the squares of many towns into a magical chessboard of a thousand bonfires. The "pan e vin" is a strong moment of popular aggregation, fortunately surviving to this day and becoming a strong tourist attraction.