Piazza dei Signori

Piazza dei Signori was Padua's political square rather than its commercial one, and it still looks the part: wider, emptier and more formal than the market squares a minute east. Its astronomical clock, first built in 1344, is the reason most people stop -- and the reason a good number of them stay to argue about the missing zodiac sign.

Table service in the square carries the usual Italian premium over standing at the bar; it is not a tourist surcharge.

The square is residential above the arcades and its evening noise is tolerated as local. Adding to it late is the one thing that makes visitors conspicuous here.

Public, open at all hours, no admission. The clock tower interior is occasionally opened for guided visits; the square itself needs no arrangement. It sits inside the ZTL, about fifteen minutes on foot from the railway station.