Padua rewards thin wallets: its greatest churches charge nothing, arcaded streets keep you dry for free, and 800 years of students have held bar prices down. Three days here cost less than one day in Venice, 35 km down the line.
Free entry to the 1232 basilica holding St Anthony's tomb, Donatello's bronze high altar and eight domes. Open 06:20–19:00 daily. Cloisters, the Magnolia courtyard and side chapels cost nothing; only the Scoletta upstairs charges €5.
Padua's cathedral, built on a partly Michelangelo-derived plan, is free and half-empty while queues build elsewhere. Open 07:30–12:00 and 15:45–19:30. The bare white nave hides Giusto de' Menabuoi panels in the sacristy.
One of Christendom's largest churches — 122 m long, nine domes — charges nothing at all. Behind the altar sit the 5th-century Martyrs' Well and the tomb claimed for St Luke. Open 07:30–12:00 and 15:00–20:00, monks on hand.
Padua's 1603 ghetto survives as a knot of tall thin houses along Via San Martino e Solferino and Via delle Piazze, free to wander. Plaques mark the synagogue burned in 1943, and the district holds the centre's cheapest osterie.
Saturday's market fills the ellipse with 200-plus stalls of cheese, soppressa salami, fruit and second-hand clothes from 08:00 to 14:00. A wedge of Asiago plus a loaf runs about €6; Sunday's antiques edition is smaller and slower.
A cult panini counter on Via Gorizia with more than 100 numbered fillings chalked across the wall; you write your number on a slip and eat standing on the pavement. Rolls €3.50–5.50, beer €2.50. Closed Sundays and much of August.
The vaulted arcade under the Palazzo della Ragione has held butchers, cheesemongers and salumerie since 1218. Counters sell €1.50 tramezzini, cured horse meat and Grana offcuts, and several pour a glass of Raboso for under €2.
Padua treats the spritz as a standing drink: order at Bar Nazionale or the counters lining Piazza dei Signori, pay €2.50–3.50, and drink on the flagstones beneath the 1344 astronomical clock with free crisps and olives thrown in.
A 20-minute regional train reaches Monselice, where the free Via del Santuario delle Sette Chiese climbs past seven votive chapels and a castle to a ridge overlooking the Euganean Hills, with the Alps visible on clear mornings.
An 1829 romantic garden of cedars, a ruined temple folly and shaded benches, free to enter and rarely crowded even in August. The Alì supermarket three minutes away covers bread, mortadella and water for roughly €4 a head.
Five euros buys some 800 m² of Giusto de' Menabuoi's 1370s frescoes, including a domed Paradise crowded with saints — the cheapest complete fresco cycle of its rank in Italy. Open 10:00–18:00, capped at 25 visitors at a time.
The old river port where students once boarded burchielli for Venice is now free riverside steps facing the 1519 water gate. Bars along Via Portello pour €2 spritz for the university crowd, and the towpath runs 4 km east to Noventa.