It was supposed to rain heavily today and when we woke up it was. So we decided to stay here one more day and wait out the bad weather. By 10am the rain had stopped and we debated whether we should head on down the road, but the weather app said it was going to rain so we stayed. It did not rain again and by 2pm the sun was out. Now it is supposed to rain heavily tomorrow according to weather.com.
The good news is that we used the down time to draw up a plan for the rest of our trip. We also made another trip to Lidl to get some groceries. As I was looking at the wine display one of the employees handed me a bottle of wine and in English told me it was a steal and he was buying 4 bottles himself. I appreciated the tip, but was a little bothered that without me speaking he looked at me and decided I was a foreigner and not Italian.
After our day of rest yesterday we were both up early and ready to get going into town. Our campground is conveniently located about 100 yards from a tram stop that took us right to the center of town. But our destination for the day was the Citta Alta for Bergamo.
One of the gates to the Citta Alta with a stone passageway from the lower city leading into it.
From the train station we took a bus up the hill towards the Citta Alta or high city. The high city is the old town in Bergamo and as described is built on an imposing hill overlooking the valley all the way to Milan. The lower city is mostly a product of the early 20th century.
Looking down on the lower city from the Citta Alta.
Bergamo is also a university town as we quickly learned as the bus we were on quickly filled with millennials heading to the University on the hill. Some of the buildings we saw are quite old, but they must have other purposes in the past because the university was founded in 1968.
This young man had just received his Doctorate in Business from the University. The recent graduates wear a crown of leaves with a red bow. Apparently the tradition is for the graduates to hand out a red candy to guests so Ton and I got a couple pieces of candy from him for congratulating him.
We did not have a plan for visiting Bergamo so when we got off the bus at the top of the hill we just wandered into the old town. We quickly found the main north-south street which dates back to the Romans and walked the length of it. Italy and France are two countries where you can gain weight just by walking by window displays, and we love just looking in the windows and drooling.
These Foccacia style pizzas were sold by the piece. At lunch this was the place of choice for several high school groups visiting town. I imagine the cookies were also popular.
After walking the length of the town we decided to treat ourselves to a coffee. We chose Bugan Coffee lab as Ton had read about it on line. They had won an award in 2023 as the best coffee roaster in Italy and the Italians take their coffee seriously so that is an accomplishment. The coffee was delicious, and we enjoyed a fun discussion with the barista and a customer about coffee and Italy.
The main square with the old town hall on the left and a building repurposed for the University on the right.
We spent quite a bit of time on the main square as there was quite a lot to see. The old town hall dates back to the 1400’s and the tower contains a large clock and the main bell for the city. In Europe you constantly here bells ringing but Bergamo takes the award. At 10 pm the bell on the town hall is rung 100 times. In the past it was to warn everyone that the gates to the city were closing, now it is just for fun.
Another large and ornate church.
We visited the church next to the cathedral as there was a mass going on in the cathedral. The church was massive and quite impressive itself. But for us what made it fun was the organist was practicing while we were looking around. In addition to looking at the art we spent the whole time trying to locate where they were playing from and never succeeded but we did enjoy the sound of the pipes.
The exterior of the Cathedral.
For the first time on this trip we enjoyed a meal in a restaurant. Northern Italian food is quite different than Southern Italian. Here there are more steaks and chops and often the side dishes are polenta or potatoes. Polenta is related to grits so being a southerner originally I opted for polenta as the side for my veal while Ton went for potatoes with her Beef. We did get local stuffed pasta called casoncelli a local ravioli from Bergamo. Once again Italian cooking did not let us down and we enjoyed ourselves.
This is a local dessert made from polenta. As good as it looked we passed as we were stuffed from our meal.
After lunch we decided to walk down the hill to the new town. The path down was steep and we were both happy with our decision to ride up the hill and then walk down.
The city walls at the top of the hill.
When we got back to our aire for the night we checked the weather forecast hoping it had improved. Unfortunately it had not and we look like we are in for 3 wet days. Since we need to do some planning we extended our stay here and will spend tomorrow which is supposed to be the wettest plotting our route thru Italy for the next 25 days.
Our grand tour of Switzerland is over. We really enjoyed Switzerland the natural beauty of the country is remarkable.
Today we shifted down to a small city near Milan called Bergamo. We arrived with an empty refrigerator and an empty gas tank. While Switzerland is beautiful it is also expensive. So we spent the last couple of days emptying the cupboards of canned goods we have been carrying around for a couple of years.
Our first stop when we got to Bergamo was a Lidl where we spent an hour filling a shopping basket. After we settled in to the aire here we decided to take the rest of the day off.
We woke early to head into Milan as the weather forecast was threatening. It looked like the best window was going to be in the morning, so we were off for downtown before 8:30.
I expected Milan to be a more elegant city than it turned out to be, based on it being the fashion capital of the world with names like Gucci, Versace, Louis Vuitton and Prada located here. I envisioned it to be a Miami or Los Angeles. Instead it felt more like Pittsburg or Detroit, more industrial than elegant.
Our camp site is in a working class neighborhood at the end of a tram line which is convenient for getting downtown. We take public transport in most of the cities so we get to see the less glamorous parts of town. It gives a view of life away from the tourist centers, and a chance to watch people interacting in a normal environment, which we enjoy. Milan is a more diverse city than any we have seen in Italy. It definitely has the largest Asian population we have seen which seems to be mostly Philippinos. We had been commenting on the lack of Kebab shops in Italy compared to the other countries we have visited, but Milan had plenty of Kebab shops.
One of the windows of the Louis Vuitton store in Milan.
Downtown Milan did have some of the elegance we were looking for with all of the big name fashion designers having stores in the Galleria off of the main square. Right after we arrived downtown it started raining and the Galleria is covered so we headed there to get out of the rain. We walked around looking at all of the fancy stores and enjoying the Galleria. I believe it is the inspiration for all of the malls that dot the US, but on a scale that no developer is going to pay for.
The Galleria in Milan, the inspiration for hundreds of “Malls” in the US.
Between showers we would dash out of the Galleria and head towards the Cathedral which is the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world. It was built over 600 years so it passed thru a lot of design styles. It is know for the hundreds of statues on the exterior and the interior.
Ton really liked these two statues, though we are not sure what the story is.
We decided to pay the small entrance fee to visit the interior as there was no line. We were both impressed with one particular statue of St. Bartholomew. The statue is in great detail and you can see his bones, muscles, and veins. We did not realize this was because he was flayed alive. What we thought was a robe wrapped around him is actually his skin!
St. Bartholomew with his skin wrapped around him like a robe.
We had been remarking on Italy being the first country we had visited in Europe that did not have several Starbucks in every major city. Ton looked it up and there is only one Starbucks in Italy and it is also the largest Starbucks in the world (until next week when a larger one will open in Chicago). We decided to visit it as it roasts its own coffee that Starbucks calls a “Reserve Roast”. They also feature many different ways of brewing coffee. We expected to have a quick coffee and head out, but ended up in there for well over an hour and enjoying two coffee’s each.
We have hit a lull in the trip. A combination of poor weather and the need to be much more deliberate in planning. It looks like nearly every campsite in Northern Italy closed down on November 3rd. Our plan was to visit one of the lakes that Northern Italy is famous for. Our first choice was Lake Como, but after looking at over 20 campsites websites they were all closed. We switched to Lake Garda and seemed to find one campsite that was open. Their website and the ACSI website both said that it was open until November 10. So today Lake Garda was our target.
No pictures for today as we spent most of the day driving. So another picture of St. Marks square under water.
We took our time departing Vicenza as the drive was only an hour to the campsite on Lake Garda. We began with a shopping trip to Lidl. After the last two days between the American Grocery at the Army base and Lidl; François is stuffed with food. Ton had a difficult time getting everything into place. Heading down the Autostrada to Lake Garda was easy, thought the truck traffic was quite heavy. It was a short trip to the campsite after we left the Autostrada and it was raining heavily. We discussed whether it was worth stopping as we did not know whether we would be able to enjoy the lake in the rain. The problem was solved when we arrived at the campground and found that despite all of our internet research it was closed for the season. So the decision was made and we headed back to the autostrada for the additional 140 kilometers to Milan.
Our destination this time was an Agritourismo site on the edge of Milan that was reported to be open. We arrived about 3 pm and were directed down some really small roads, and when the GPS announced we had arrived there was nothing that looked like a place for campers in site. I remembered that one of the reviews said that the GPS coordinates for the site were not quite accurate so I parked François and went on a foot reconnaissance and found the site tucked away.
It is definitely the most eccentric site we have stayed on here in Italy. It is tucked in the courtyard of a farm building surrounded by construction and apartments. There are a couple of dogs running around, a cat that seems to be in charge, and 10 or 12 chickens. It is the only site available in Milan so it will do.
