A teensy disclaimer here: this post will a bit verbose, 'cause I LOVED BERGAMO, at least, the Alta Città ("high city," to the layperson) portion of it. The upper city is old and historic and charming, and is where we stayed; the lower city is more modern and relative charm-less, but with a few old churches/interesting buildings tucked in. However, if you forget something--say, underwear or deodorant, both of which one or both of us may or may not have forgotten--you're not finding it up on the hill. And also, you take a cable car or a bus to get from one part of the city to the other, both of which are sketchy propositions, as the cable car runs only rarely due to apparently super high maintenance costs, and the bus does NOT run anywhere close to on time. Ahhh, Italian efficiency. (If you go, STAY IN THE UPPER CITY. It's waaaaaaay prettier and is really where you want to be.)
Anyway. I really had no idea this city would be that awesome. The ride there was fiendishly hot (stupid Gotthard tunnel), and the ride home was freezing and raining (stupid weather), and it was still worth the trip. We even decided to spend a second night there: thankfully, our little B&B could fit us in, 'cause it was just that fantastic.
So. The first night we rolled in fairly late--around 9:30--and got into our room, and then actually had many restaurants to choose from for dinner (gasp!). (It was very un-Swiss, and quite refreshing: dinner at 10 PM? Anarchy!) We ate at Ristorante da Franco, primarily because they had a lovely outdoor dining area, and because at even at that time of night, it was still a bit warm, and terrifically humid. Yuck. We started with the local-plate-o-meat, which is always a solid choice in Italy (usually salami, prosciutto, and in this case, bresaola and lardo) and then Mike had lasagna, we split an order of polenta with mushroom sauce (they're very proud of the polenta in Bergamo, but it seems like fancified grits, to me...just sayin'), and I sampled the local pasta: casoncelli, which is a beef ravioli-type-pasta topped with olive oil, fried sage, and--yesssss--bacon. It's just as good as it sounds. Sorbetto and panna cotta for dessert. Maybe not the finest food I've ever had, but certainly solid, and Italian.
Next morning we awoke to yet more humidity and heat, and ate breakfast at our little bed and breakfast (B&B Agnese), which turned out to be the best idea ever. I'll just list the spread: meat plate (mortadella, salami, prosciutto, yessss!), yogurt (flavored and plain), fresh fruit, cereals, nectarines with balsamic vinegar, bread basket, juice, fresh coffee, cappuccinos, fresh mozzarella. Um, yes please. I love European breakfasts, and this one was just special. Plus, the B&B owners were just really nice, and the place itself was just lovely (not the fanciest, but well located and comfy).
View up the hill from our breakfast table.
Back side of our B&B.
Then headed out to see the sights, of which there are many in this little town. The history of the place is pretty amazing: first settled by the Celts in the 6th century B.C.; colonized by the Romans in 197 B.C.; conquered by the Lombards and the Franks and then handed over to the Episcopals (not kidding...!) and then conquered again by the Viscontis, all between 197 B.C. and 1331 A.D. Venice took over in 1428 and left its mark (there are lion statues, friezes, etc., everywhere), during which time the walls, which are the defining feature of the Alta Città, came into being; then Napoleon came in and founded Bergamo Republic 1797), which is then passed to Austria. In 1859 Garibaldi troops through with his freedom fighters, and Bergamo becomes part of the unification of Italy in 1861. After that it they built the lower city, and now it is what it is: super interesting. But I digress. The sights!
The street our B&B was on. Old and narrow. I love it.
Same street: building with a fresco poking out. There were lots of these, all over town.
I love how they make old stuff work with modern life. (Tower and wall? Yes. Soccer court? Yes, also.)
Sant'Alessandro gate in the old walls. Not its best angle, but these things were monumental. (There are four of them, each situated at the road to a major city, and they are something to see.)
The Citadel, the remaining part of the Visconti fortifications. It now houses the natural sciences and archaeological museum. And its piazza is now a parking lot. You know people are used to everything being old and cool when they park their cars in a place like this.
More old, narrow streets. This doesn't quite capture how narrow it all really was...
The window of Il Fornaio, a take-away focaccia pizza place and bakery. Pretty food!
The facade of town hall (1604) in Piazza Vecchia.
Piazza del Duomo, with the Duomo on the left (white facade), Santa Maria Maggiore and the Colleoni Chapel directly in front. The Baptistery is on the right.
The Colleoni Chapel (1470-1472). A prominent city leader destroyed an apse of the adjoining church (Santa Maria Maggiore) in order to build his own tomb, which reminds me of a wedding cake in marble. Insane detail.
No really, look at this. You can't take photos inside, but suffice it to say that it's pretty nuts on the decoration there, too.
Baptistry (1340).
Overwhelmingly Baroque interior of Santa Maria Maggiore. Construction began in 1137, and wasn't really completed until the 16th century (financial troubles, changing styles, the usual.). Originally the interior was covered with Romanesque frescoes, but later redone in over-the-top Baroque gilding, statuary, painting, friezes, etc., etc.
One of the recovered frescoes.
Side exterior of Santa Maria Maggiore: you can't even remotely see all of this from the front!
Compared to the crazy Colleoni Chapel, the front of Santa Maria Maggiore is fairly unadorned, but it does have these cool red stone lions. (A little kid was riding one when we came out.)
I love their street signs. (And also, how many names this street has...!)
I think this place is a bit like Bologna: miscellaneous medieval towers everywhere.
I love how this is one building with two distinct styles. I also love how warm this photo looks: I want to go in there, to see what's inside.
Random gigantic, old building that appears, for all intents and purposes, to be just normal apartments. I AM SO JEALOUS. I love where we live, but this building has character!
More narrow, winding streets. And this one actually has no people on it!
The Rocca: fortress on the hill. This part dates to the mid-15th century. This building now houses a museum dedicated mostly to Bergamo's role in the Risorgimento (unification of Italy), and the grounds are a memorial park for Bergamo citizens who died in various wars. It's full of old artillery pieces, a tank, a giant ship anchor, and various plaques and monuments. Very interesting. (And also, this year marks the 150th anniversary of Bergamo's entrance into unified Italy, so there were little Risorgimento exhibits and festivals and things everywhere. Pretty neat stuff.)
View of the Alta Città towers from the Rocca.
View from the Rocca's ramparts over part of the lower city.
Polenta cake! We meant to try it, but didn't get a chance. It sounded delicious: it's not actually polenta, but a yellow cake covered with fondant and sugar crystals and filled with with some variety of cream, topped with little chocolate birdies and jam. NEXT TIME.
The torta table where we ate lunch. We were both absolutely too stuffed to eat any, but LOOK HOW PRETTY. (They also had a little table with giant slabs of chocolate on it, for hot cocoa. Go figure: it was in the 80s that day.)
Al Donizetti, where we had lunch. Looked like it used to be a covered market square like the one in Florence, which is larger. But perfect for lunch outside!
Mike had the casoncelli.
I had the pizzocheri alla Valtellinese, a buckwheat pasta with potatoes, greens, and TONS OF CHEESE. Truly terrible service, but good food and a really great location!
St. Mark's lion on the Sant'Alessandro gate.
View of Alta Città from the opposite side of the Rocca (from the grounds of what remains of San Vigilio castle).
We did have to spend a couple of hours puttering around the lower city trying to find the aforementioned necessities, so you can't say I'm judging its lack of charm without having first experienced it...but it was nice to get back up the hill! We had dinner that night at Trattoria La Columbina, which was about a two-minute walk from our B&B, since the weather was horrendous, but the dinner turned out to be lovely. We started with baked ricotta topped with pesto and accompanied by the ubiquitous polenta, and then Mike had the casoncelli (again! twice in one day! although this was the best iteration yet), and I tried risotto with bacon and some mystery ingredient we couldn't decipher in with limited-at-best Italian skills; turned out it was bleu cheese, which I don't love, but which was fairly decent in combination with the bacon. (No surprise there.) We split the brasato con polenta (again, with the polenta!) for our second plate, which was beef slices braised in red wine, and it was AMAZING. Dessert was panna cotta with strawberry sauce, into which they had poured little hearts with some type of custard: really cute, and quite tasty. Blanket statement: you can never go wrong with panna cotta, in Italy...at worst, it's still going to be quite edible.
Next morning, breakfast was, again, spectacular: fruit/yogurts/juice/coffees/breads again, but this time with fresh burrata (usually, salted heavy cream wrapped in a little bag of fresh mozzarella--yep, it's as good as it sounds); pear slices drizzled in the local moscato dessert wine (it's red, and tastes more like a light port than moscato) and served with these little fluffy-slightly sweet-crackery things topped with powdered sugar; and bresaola topped with olive oil, lemon juice and salt (what a revelation!). I suspect that breakfasts like that are how people become those obnoxious "morning people". (Probably wouldn't work on me, but it certainly makes getting up a happier experience.)
And those were our last happy moments in Bergamo: it was insanely humid and a bit warm as we were gearing up to get on the bike, and once we were moving it was tolerable, but it started raining about 20 minutes outside of the city and proceeded to pour on us most of the rest of the way home (so, about 3 hours). On the one hand, the waterfalls coming down the mountains through which we were riding were ridiculously beautiful and were everywhere: it reminded me of Hawaii! But in a super freezing, all-of-my-clothes-are-soaked-through kind of way. And we rode up the eastern side of Lake Lucerne, which was gorgeous and dramatic and quite enjoyable, and roughly where the rain eased up, so that was nice, too. Ride home: atrocious. Rest of trip: AMAZING. Italy has yet to disappoint. =)
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