A Padova - Saturday 4th September - The adventure by train

The shutters do such a fine job of keeping the sun out that my waking time seems to be totally a matter of chance.

Nadia greats me cheerily and makes me a maternal cup of coffee and then tells me that she's off to the mountains for the weekend but that the children, the dog and the cats will be staying at home.  I suppose that makes me capo and "in locum parentis" all rolled into one.  Wait - whose that? "That's Margharetta, my other daughter" - replied Nadia. So the count in the apartment is now (in decreasing order of age): Me, Nadia, Francesca, Margharetta, Susanna, Albertto, Ringo (the dog), Professore Miguel (the indoor cat) and Diaboloino  (the outside, boss cat) - I'm not just living  near the ghetto I'm living in one!

 Another sunny morning, another hot walk through the crowds - I don't think so. I hatch a cunning plan (peace be upon you Baldrick) I'll walk down the long, untouristed  Fondemente of Canareggio in the general direction of the station and from there (as my knee is giving me complete gyp) take a comfortable train to Padua.

Cunning plans have a huge propensity for going  wrong. Let me count the ways:

• a wedding crowd gets off the vaporetto in their finery and heads towards the local church (Madonna dell'Orto)  and I get caught up in it - the church is in the opposite direction to the driection I wish to go
• The fondemente (quays alongside canals) seem to go on for ever but every now and again they're cut by a transverse canal and usually there isn't a bridge - so you back track and find a bridge which brings you back into a neighbourhood you don't know which leads you to being:
• Completely lost. So  you get out your map (I forgot to bring my compass) and take half  an hour to get back to where you started.

Damn the crowds - I'll have to go my usual way along the main tourist drag. Which involves two scoops of gelato and a smeary, ugly ice-cream  stain down the front of my linen trousers.

The station is a long, low-slung  somewhat fascist  style moderne building surmounted  by a red FS symbol - which looks a bit like superman's logo.  I convinced  that  there's a connection there somewhere between Italian rail-stations,, trains running on time, fascism and the man of steel but that's a topic  for another day.

Having been bloodied by Italian  queues before  I decide to take the cowards way out and buy a ticket from the machine. Fine an easy transaction - why not go first class?

Unfortunately the machine sold me a ticket on a train departing in 2 minutes!  I run hither and thither and finally find the train with the right number - bliss, a window seat, a small table, air-conditioning.

We seem to be waiting a long time to depart but who cares - out with the  book: The Stones of Venice by Ruskin, when an American couple come in  a claim my seat.  We all have valid tickets - the train is underway - here's the lovely Italian train lady - no my ticket is for the previous train and she will have to charge me an extra 8 Euros for  the privilege  of staying on-board which she will collect on the way back. (she never does come back for it).

I find an empty seat and by the time I've read a chapter or two we've arrived - the Eurostar  trains are so quick it's like flying but with more space and much more comfort. The 38 km to Padua more even  than flying past has just evaporated.