The first memory I have of Padova is an image of my feet. I think  was 6 years old. I was wearing a new pair of beautiful navy Victorias. We were on the street waiting to cross the road and my feet were burning. Were my bright white soles melting? It was boiling hot! Now that I think about it, my first memory of Padova was a #fromwhereIstand shot! Anyway, I used to visit Padova with my mum every Summer. I’m not going to lie: at first I hated it. The heat, the confusing streets, the visits we had to pay to hundreds of old women who gave me sticky dried fruits that I pretended to like because it would have been rude not to do so… But as I grew older, I started listening to those ladies: they were my grandma’s friends and they told me amazing yet terrifying stories about the II World War and how my family survived. As time went by, those streets turned out to be the settting of my grandparents love story. And when I was a teenager, I discovered the shops where my mum used to buy her clothes and where she would buy the best ice cream.

My favourite spots: Il Santo, Il Prato della Valle and, most of all, the market “Sotto il Salone”. My greatgrandmother, my grandmother and my mother used to get lost between its stalls for hours. And a visit to the market can’t be finished without the scrumptious Millefloglie at Graziati! Padova finally became part of my life, my home and a place I always look forward to going back to. It always feels like I’m retracing my family footsteps.  I wish my grandparents were still alive to tell me all the stories behind those buildings, churches and corners.