I had enough of the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua which I had already visited the previous day. There are a lot more places to see here that it is surprising that people overlook this city in favor of its famous neighbor Venice. That said, Padova has a lot of places to see that it is a great day tour from the crowds of Venice. I was making my way to one of the sights when I came upon what is another point of interest in the city. According to the Google Maps, this is an anstronomical observatory. It is obviously an old observatory since it doesn’t look anything like the modern ones.

The observatory or La Specola is actually part of the Carrara Castle however, I didn’t know this and I can only see the tower. One of the towers of the castle was used as the observatory and it has made numerous contributions to science. I didn’t get to enter the observatory since it appeared to be what I thought private property. I was under the impression that this was part of the University of Padova and thus I didn’t think I could go in. Although people seemed to be just coming and going without any checks. One of the popular myths about La Specola is that this was where Galileo Galilei made his great scientific discoveries while he was teaching here. However, the tower was only built long after the famous scientist left Padova.

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