Having spent several wet weekends in a row at home, we were determined that this weekend, rain or shine, we would go and visit somewhere. The reports of Bergamo had always been very positive, so Bergamo it would be.
What is more, Saturday dawned with wonderful blue skies. No rain, no fog, no overcast; just a perfect blue dome.
Bergamo is very close to Milan, so about half an hour of motorwaying had us there. The Lonely Planet describes Begamo as effectively two cities - the modern city at the bottom of a hill, and the old city on top of the hill. As tourists, we were, of course, interested in only the old city.
As always, the Lonely Planet proved trusty. We followed its instructions to follow the notices for 'Citta Alta' (Upper City). This lead us the the 'Parking area for Citta Alta' - a big underground car park.
From the car park, it was just a short walk to the Cable Car that scales the cliff from the lower city to the upper city. Even more convenient - this walk took us part a supermarket that enbaled us to stock up with lunch supplies.
The short cable-car ride delivered us back several centuries. The upper city is entirely narrow cobbled streets, little Piazzas, Churches, etc - a completely preserved historic zone (with cars, unfortunately).
Lunch was a picnic in the grounds of the castle - a lovely green hilltop park, all set about with WWII artillery. Filed guns and tanks lurked quietly in the shrubbery. It afforded wonderful views of the old city, the new city, and the mountains beyond - a really wonderful picnic spot.Post-lunch, we wandered through the streets, with no particular destination in mind. We came to a piazza ringed by a natural history and archeology museum. This proved to be a more than averagely interesting museum. One part was packed with Greek and Roman remains found in the Lombardy region, including a fairly well preserved piece of Roman Moasiac flooring about 15 feet square. Across the other side of the Piazza were the African and Eqyption wings - wonderful bizzare african masks, and some real Mummies (one of which was partially unwrapped!).
Post-lunch, we wandered through the streets, with no particular destination in mind. We came to a piazza ringed by a natural history and archeology museum. This proved to be a more than averagely interesting museum.
One part was packed with Greek and Roman remains found in the Lombardy region, including a fairly well preserved piece of Roman Moasiac flooring about 15 feet square. Across the other side of the Piazza were the African and Eqyption wings - wonderful bizzare african masks, and some real Mummies (one of which was partially unwrapped!).
Back through the narrow streets (occassionally pressing ourselves agains the walls to let a car pass), and we were in the central Piazza of the old city. The Duomo is at one side of this Piazza. Its exterior is slightly eastern-looking, rather different from any of the other building in the town. It interior, however, is Baroque-issimo. Such a profusion of gilded cherubs, unnecessary spirals, carved marble, paintings framed by massive golden columns, etc etc! Evey inch of the ceiling cries out 'look at me - not over there, I'm a much better example of extreme ornamentation than that bit!'.
We sat in a pew for some time to take this all in. The walls are somewhat more sober than the ceiling - some wonderful large tapestries and a fresco of the last supper. The doors were made of a wood that looked remarkably like walnut. We had not seen walnut woodwork before in Italy, but these did look remarkably like walnut.
We'd got quite tired by this stage; and the air temperature, never very high all day, was dropping. So, another wind through narrow streets, and then it was down the cable-car back into the modern world.
So yeah, my Dad was a keen film buff and a keen photographer, while my Mum was a musician and an artist. Plus both worked with computers professionally.
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