Bérgamo

An evening in Bérgamo. Kurt Hielscher published one photo of Bérgamo in his 1925 and two in his 1939 edition of Italy. Coming from Switzerland and the Lago di Como where we stayed for a few nights on the lovely campsite La Fornace, we moved on to the southeast. We planned to visit some of its Italy's gem cities like Bérgamo, Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, Padua and one of the islands east of Venice, or at least some of these. Especially Verona was high on the wishing list. Kurt Hielscher published plenty of photos from these cities, but the summer heath made us doubt. That morning of July 15th 2024 we went to Bellagio, took the boat to Varenna at the other side of Como Lake and went for a swim back in Bellagio. In the afternoon we left and decided to visit and stay in Bérgamo.

On arrival, I noticed the ZTL (limited traffic zone) was shut off and there was plenty of space to park the van, but it was not allowed to park the van anywhere at all around the Città Alta, so after a few rounds catching some glimpses, we went back downhill to end up at the official RV parking space. We had to walk back through the heath to the funicolare, which was actually only half an hour stroll, but we were not yet well acclimatized at the time. On our way we passed a soccer field with a bunch of guys in their thirties playing fanatically. I imagine I could have died there on that field playing like this. Leaving the funiculare, we immediately, went further up to the Parco delle Rimembranze from where we received our reward in the footsteps of Kurt Hielscher with this stunning view, a few minutes after sunset though. I think we were lucky the park was still open, because after something like half an hour the area was closed and we were asked to leave. 

Kim and our youngest son.

The park with its viewpoint is situated next to the 14th century fortress Rocca di Bergamo on the highest hill of Bergamo, the St. Eufemia Hill. 

Queuing up for the funicolare and the entrance portal to the Rocca.

After closure of the park, we walked around the stunning old city, had dinner on its main square, the piazza Vecchia and ice-cream at famous La Marianna, before heading down on a very steep path in the dark back to the van.

Here we see the Palazzo della Ragione (Palazzo Vecchio) with the Fontana Contarini that dates back to 1780 in front of it. On the right we find the mid-12th century Campanone, the nearly 53 meters high Civic Tower with its 14th century belltower. While we still had our dinner, at 10 p.m., the Campanone rang one hundred chimes like every evening, which is a tradition that dates back to the time of the Republic of Venice. I made this photo nearly an hour later, so close to 23:00/11pm.

View to Piazza Vecchia through the Portici della Ragione.

Fontana Contarini and Portici della Ragione under the Palazzo Nuovo on the Piazza Vecchia. 

Ristorante Lalimentari on the Piazza Vecchia where we went for dinner.

Palazzo Nuovo and the Fontana on a lovely square at the crossing of Via Combito and Via San Pancrazio.

Downhill back to the RV parking place.

Back at the RV parking lot.

Because of the ongoing heath and with pain in our hearts, we decided not to visit Verona and the other cities but to save those for some other time and move on to Croatia's Adriatic coast. Two more to come from Bérgamo.

Below: View on Bérgamo.