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Stunning Bergamo:)

Move over Milan: A long weekend in brilliant Bergamo, a city that is more than an airport

By MAX DAVIDSON
UPDATED: 09:20 GMT, 18 January 2012

Poor Bergamo.

It is one of the prettiest cities in Italy, but how many of the passengers landing at the airport go near it?

Most make a bee-line for Milan, for which Bergamo is the airport of choice of the low-cost airlines.

Waiting to be discovered: Bergamo is far more than a low-cost gateway to Milan

They are missing a treat, because this little walled city, in the foothills of the Alps, is Italy in perfect miniature: a walk-through gallery of Italian culture, with thrilling buildings cheek-by-jowl with terrific restaurants and the strains of classical music throbbing in the background.

The most famous son of Bergamo is Gaetano Donizetti, composer of Don Pasquale, Luciadi Lammermoor and other operatic masterpieces. There is a little museum, tucked down a side street, where you can find out more about the man and his works.

But long before you visit the museum, you get a sense of grand opera.

 

The traffic-free main square of Bergamo is more like a stage set than any stage set. There is a fountain in the foreground, a palazzo in the background, a campanile stage right and a cafe stage left.

In the distance, you can glimpse an exquisite marble dome and, beyond the dome, the mountains, shimmering in the sun. Shoppers, lovers, schoolchildren and dogs complete the picture, which is worthy of a Canaletto.

Bergamo was ruled by Venice for nearly 300 years, and there is many a Venetian gracenote in the architecture. But it also gives off an air of rugged independence, with its fortified hillside setting. It wears its past lightly, and inside the centuries-old buildings, there is a pervasive sense of fun.

Some cities rich in history take themselves so seriously, the effect can be suffocating. Not Bergamo.

The painting of the Last Supper in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is more like a cartoon than a work of religious devotion. Jesus and his disciples are upstaged by a cat and dog competing for a water bowl.

Mountain moments: The city enjoys a dramatic Alpine backdrop

Even the tomb of Donizetti, in the same church, has a frivolous air, with grief-stricken putti throwing hissy fits and trampling on their harps.

Just next to the basilica is the marvellous Colleoni Chapel, the glory of Bergamo and one of the finest Renaissance buildings in Italy. It looks as dainty as a jewelbox from the outside, but the interior seems to take wing, as your eye is drawn ever upwards to the great domed ceiling, with its exuberantly painted frescoes.

If the main square of Bergamo resembles a stage set, the shop windows on the side-streets are like paintings, a riot of colour, ravishing the senses.

Clothes-shoppers will find stylish Italian designs at competitive prices, while foodies will be in heaven, seduced by gleaming tomatoes, fresh-picked mushrooms, whole hams, wild boar sausages, chocolate and almond tarts, lemon liqueurs, gelati of every flavour you can imagine.

The dish most associated with Bergamo is casoncelli - sausage-stuffed ravioli cooked in sage and butter with bacon. It is hearty peasant fare, simplicity itself, but the restaurants vie with each other to produce the most mouthwatering version.

At the Trattoria Tre Torri, a tiny family restaurant where the natives can be guaranteed to outnumber the tourists, the casoncelli is so sumptuous that I take my eye off  the ball and nearly order braised donkey for my main course. How could they? Haven't they read Winnie the Pooh?

I have to make do with wild mushrooms instead.

Other Bergamo highlights include a delightful botanical garden, clinging to the side of a mountain, and a museum dedicated to the heroes of the Risorgimento, when the city threw off the yoke of Austrian rule and became part of an independent Italy.

Outside the museum, in a park of remembrance, there are touching monuments to the fallen of past wars in the shade of the cypresses.

Modern Bergamo may be relaxed, easy-going, but its citizens have not always been able to take their freedoms for granted. They have had to fight for them.

I keep the best till last, taking the funicular railway up the mountain to the little fortress of San Virgilio, perched on a precipice overlooking the city. Seen from above, the Renaissance domes and towers and piazzas, laid out with geometric precision, seem even more magnificent, an essay in serenity.

As the sun sets, it is time to think about dinner. In Bergamo, it is a racing certainty it will be a good one.

a masterpiece!!

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