Photo Credit: Myself
Hi guys,
If you've read my previous posts you know I like to travel and blog about my trips and experiences. However, I haven't written anything lately as I was quite busy with tasks and work, and just couldn't manage with everything. Currently, I have a gap and I'll take this opportunity to share some info about my recent trip to Italy, and more concretely - the city of Bergamo. Hope you enjoy it!
Photo Credit: Myself
Before my visit, whenever I thought about Italy the things that came to my mind were Rome and the Coliseum (history), Milan (about fashion), Venice (romantic holiday) - all of these places turned into symbols for the country and are most attractive to the tourists. To be honest, I'd never heard about a city called Bergamo before actually starting to plan my stay there. And I can only assume, but I believe most people don't know of its existence either. As it turned out later, however, this city is a hidden treasure, and not something to miss out.
Photo Credit: Myself
How everything started
New Year was four months back but that's when the idea to visit Bergamo first arose. A friend of mine had shared with me that she was going to visit Cologne (Germany), and that plane tickets were a good deal for going on holiday there considering the distance. That intrigued me and immediately moved into my to-do list - checking the flights and planning my next vacation. And during the New Year celebrations, I shared with my mother about what I've found and she was also very excited to make a trip with me and enjoy a nice holiday. After checking, double-checking and triple-checking the available dates and prices, as I was not satisfied with what's on offer, I decided to check other places (besides Germany) and noticed they offer flights to Milan. And that's how I found our flight from the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia, to the airport in Bergamo, Milan.
Now, I did buy the tickets without checking where this Bergamo was. As Milan has three airports (one of them in Bergamo), I really believed the one I'm going to is just somewhere in the suburbs of Milan and it would be an easy job going to the city center. Then, after buying the tickets I started researching how to get to the city and that's when I realized that Bergamo is a separate city, located around 50 km away from Milan. Oh well. :) Not that I didn't want to check that upfront, but when you have checked more than 20 flights and different dates, trust me, checking something additionally is the last thing you want to do. Of course, there is a convenient transportation to Bergamo with a bus, which takes maybe an hour or more, but we were visiting only for a day and we needed those hours - couldn't spend them in traveling.
Video Credit: Nina B via YouTube.com
The final decision was to forget about Milan and focus on going to the city of Bergamo and enjoy the whole day there. After all, it can't be that bad, can it? Now I'm happy we decided to organize it this way as I'm sure (without visiting Milan) that we made the better choice.
Bergamo City
Photo Credit: Myself
What is so special about this city? Bergamo is a typical Italian city with lots of history and preserved old buildings since ancient times. The city is divided into two parts - the old city and the modern part of the center (downtown). The most attractive one is the old city, or in other words Città Alta. This historical part of Bergamo is accessible by bus and is situated on a hill. We took the bus to reach there and I can assure you the more we traveled the better the view became. It's an amazing feeling to look at the city from above, and from the bus, I managed to see an alley going on one side of the road with benches to enjoy the view. There are many options to get off the bus but we didn't know which is the best one to explore so we waited until the bus reached higher before we left.
Photo Credit: Myself
The town has two centres: "Città alta" (upper city), a hilltop medieval town, surrounded by 16th-century cyclopic defensive walls, and the "Città bassa" (lower city).
Video Credit: LimeWave via YouTube.com
Once on foot, we went through ancient gates, climbed some stone steps and I noticed a fortress. We passed through a wooden bridge, a tiny tunnel in the rocks and a dark tower alike building until we managed to reach the highest point of the hill. Luckily, the weather was nice and warm. I didn't even need to bring my jacket with me - I spent the entire day without it. On the top of the hill, not only the view is breathtaking. It is very quiet, relaxing, the air is fresh, the ground is covered with greenery and everything is so pleasant for the eye. Besides that, I don't know if this was because I was in the mood, but the other people I saw there seemed happy to me, as well.
Photo Credit: Myself
Prior to our arrival in Bergamo, my mother checked online that they have a Botanical Garden somewhere close to the upper city. And she really wanted to go and see it, and that's what we wanted to do next. In the old city, there was a sign and a map pointing us the direction and showing which street we should take in order to reach the garden. And we went exactly this way, walking on the street with the same name as marked on the map. Guess what? Not only there was no garden, not even a hint of a garden, but we also got lost and were "in the middle of nowhere". Everything around was stone steps, steps, and again steps, pavement, tiny streets (or better I call them paths), climbing, going down until I totally lost direction.
Photo Credit: Myself
After walking maybe half an hour like that, it was already too late to go back, not to mention we needed to climb back if we decided to do so. Basically, the only option was to continue straight and hope that we won't be too far away from the city when we reach some kind of civilization. Walks are healthy in normal circumstances, but at one point I really got kind of worried as it was a long walk including having no idea where we were going. And at some places, it looked like we reached a dead end, and I think we were lucky there were always tiny paths to lead us through it and help us continue our way. What I found out, later on, was a road sign indicating that the entire system of paths and steps is actually a walking route and is intentionally so harsh to pass. Anyway, it was a good and healthy activity for us, even though a bit scary at times.
Photo Credit: Myself
At the end, we reached a busy road and after wandering a bit more and asking several people about the direction we arrived in the old city again - this time a more central area of it. Città Alta consists of two walking streets and one square (literally). I mean, it's really not that big - it takes short time to walk through the entire center. One main street is available with many shops offering traditional and unique Italian food, sweets, ice cream, etc. Since most tourists are concentrated there, I believe that's one of the reasons why the products sold looked so attractive and delicious.
Photo Credit: Myself
We stopped at a gelato self-serve shop to grab a sweet and recover some of our energy. First, I was tired, and second - it was the first time for me to use a self-serve gelato machine, but I realized too late that after I pulled the handle down I needed to push it back up - my cup was already overfilled. But as I don't consider gelato to be a "real" food, it's a dessert to me, and I was indeed hungry, I managed to eat it all.
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Since this blog is becoming too lengthy I will complete it in another post. See you there!
Photo Credit: Myself
Thanks for reading!
- by NinaB
