James Joyce lived la vita bella in Trieste and began charting Leopold Bloom’s course there.
Probably eating crispy frico lollipops, Toc’ in braid, Spring asparagus orzotto and soft frico bites on a roasted polenta tartlet.
While he put Dublin fare and choice words in the mouth of Leopold.
Upper crust: Pinocchio’s
The inner organs of beasts and fowls, thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs and fried hencods’ roes.
While most of all Joyce tells us ‘he liked grilled mutton kidneys.’
Pinocchio’s by a nose
Odyssey: At Pinocchio’s
Thankfully the good folk of Trieste had the senza to showcase their city in an Italian setting at Pinocchio’s in Temple Bar with best Italian fare.
With Friuli Venezia Giulia chef Manuel Marchetti creating pizzas especially for the occasion.
With toppings consisting of San Daniele Prosciutto and alpine smoked ricotta.
And for dessert, creamy tiramisù, a dessert born in Friuli Venezia Giulia, and Strucchi (no us neither but was gorgeous).
Grazie Ryanair
You dancer: Ryanair
Using Joyce as an entry point Trieste presented the new Ryanair seasonal route.
Available twice weekly until 28 October, with one-way fares start from €19.99pp.
And how Giacomo Joyce as he styled himself in Trieste could have done with a low-fare airlines then.
Portrait of Trieste
Io sono Italiano: Joyce
Joyce had taken a circuitous route to Trieste where he penned A Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man.
To take up a job as a tutor to a young girl Letitza, daughter of Jewish writer Ettore Schmitz.
Whom it is said he based Leopold Bloom around.
With Joyce also so smitten with Ettore’s wife Livia that he remodelled her as Anna Livia a representation of the River Liffey.
Alongside which today’s tourist hub and stag and hen central Temple Bar flows.
Vino de vici
Chin chin: Il vino
As indeed did the Italian wine. No Leopold Bloom glass of Burgundy ecco grazie on Pudding Row.
No, Ireland’s greatest author. Si, si… it was how Joyce lived la bella vita in Italy.
She was a restless spirit, a TV health expert with wanderlust whose travel needs were entrusted to me… so I’m glad she’s finally found her Happy Eva after in Algarve.
And for those of us of a certain age they’ll remember Fly me, I’m Freddie, and Laker Airways… and fly me, I’m Norse, London to New York is the latest plane on the transatlantic runway.
It is no exaggeration to say that Freddie Laker’s Skytrain revolutionised the skies.
When he burst onto the scene 45 years ago, and brought the world to the common man and woman.
Norse power: Norse Atlantic Airways
Because we wouldn’t have seen low-budget carriers Ryanair and EasyJet unless Freddie had boldly gone before.
Norse Atlantic Airways are going where Norwegian Airlines and others have gone before.
And they are being powered by former Norwegian Airlines boss Bjorn Tore Larsen.
Larsen said: “We are very pleased to now be able to welcome customers looking to book great value flights between London Gatwick and New York JFK.
“Customers now have an affordable option allowing them to book a last-minute trip or a holiday of a lifetime with an airline that offers choice and flexibility.”
Now I didn’t have first-hand experience of flying Norwegian Airlines.
Most of us still place it as Milan-Bergamo after its airport (actually it’s Il Caravaggio Orio al Serio International Airport), and this year we saw it as the Covid-19 gateway to Europe.
The pandemic hit Lombardy hard and early; the world watching in horror as its grip fastened last February and March – a preview of things to come.
Stay strong
It was a surreal light to shine on Bergamo, a medieval city in the Alpine foothills.
Suddenly portrayed not as a bustling cultural and historical hub, but through rolling television coverage.
Of empty cobbled streets, eerie churches and boarded shutters.
Medieval Bergamo
A sweeping landscape
Bergamo boasts rich galleries with works by Titian, Botticelli and Canaletto.
We know its Champions League football team, Atalanta.
It celebrates composer Gaetano Donizetti in its annual international opera festival.
And it has architectural dedications to revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi.
The cobbled stones of the old city
Bergamo is known as the Citta dei Mille after 1,000 of its citizens marched on Rome and helped unify Italy in the 19th century.
This year, tourists vanished and a different type of visitor descended.
International news teams flocking to the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital, named for another famous son.
Snapshot of Bergamo in the pandemic
But there is light at the end of the tunnel, as many of those who travelled to report on distress, only to find success, have discovered.
As Christophe Sanchez, CEO of Visit Bergamo, said: “Because of the situation we have been through, Bergamo is now the safest town in Europe.”
Visitors it is true, have not always been kind to Bergamo.
But Bergamo is kind to its visitors, particularly those who stay a while.
Owed to Autumn
The Autumn poplar trees
Visiting this autumn, I found the streets, which were desolate in March when everyone was locked away behind their shutters, alive again six months later.
Citizens mingled, talking at breakneck speed behind their masks and, of course, con le mani (with their hands).
Ice cream heaven
They spoke, of course, of the second wave that has now come to pass, and the closure of restaurants, cafes, shops and museums. But also calcio e cibo… football and food.
And whatever it is that a gathering of young Bergamaschi always chat about in loud decibels outside your hotel bedroom window at midnight.
My visit gave me a glimpse into the everyday life of the Bergamaschi – not as victims, although there have been far too many of them, but survivors.
A picture of our times
The testing centre
An exhibition of photographs in the piazza captured the past year.
A masked priest administered Mass; doctors and nurses cared for the sick and dying, and a father cradled his new-born son.
But the Bergamaschi, queuing at the open-air testing centre, knew that the worst had passed and what they were now having to endure is temporary.
They had been here before and prevailed – with a little help from God.
Bergamo is split into old and new towns, Citta Alta (high town) and Citta Bassa (low town).
The best way to reach the walled and cobbled Citta Alta is by funicular.
It takes you into the centre of things, Piazza Mercato delle Scarpe (market of the shoes), and to that staple of any old Italian town, an Irish pub, Tucans.
Take me to Church
Stories for the Masses
For the real beating heart of Bergamo, though, I went to Piazza del Duomo – which houses Bergamo Cathedral and the Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore.
Here, the Bergamaschi congregation of old could follow redemptive tales of the parting of the Red Sea, David and Goliath and Noah and the Deluge on wooden engravings.
Forza Atalanta
Deliverance was as much a part of Medieval life as it had been in Biblical times.
And when Our Lady finally spared the Bergamaschi any more suffering from the Plague in the 12th century they built this basilica to her.
Of course, all of this speaks to us in 2020 louder than ever.
Good neighbours
They’ll make a statue of me
Matteo, my Visit Bergamo guide, recalled the only sounds back in March when the city was in quarantine – the sirens of ambulances and the whirring of helicopters.
He told me of a citizen stuck in his house with his Covid-hit ageing father, unable to get help.
When he saw a report of a man who had died in the nearby town of Brescia, leaving behind a half-tank of unused oxygen.
He made his way to Brescia, found the house, asked and was given the tank, although, alas, he could not save his father.
Everything in the garden is getting rosier again
Every Bergamasque has a story of loss and suffering but for Matteo, the best response is a return to the life they know and love.
For Italians that means their famous five-course meals.
Food for thought
And there are lots more courses to come
The centrepiece of which at the Trattoria Sant’Ambroeus in Citta Alta is their special ravioli, casoncelli dei sant ambroeus.
Stuffed pasta with sausage, breadcrumbs, parsley, eggs and garlic and cheese…
All washed down with the best Valcalepio rosso Riserva doc Tenuta Castello di Grumello del Monte.
I sauntered to the city walls and La Marianna for their signature milky scoop of ice cream heaven, stracciatella.
Plenty polenta
And, of course, for Lombardy that was only lunch. Dinner in the roof garden of the plush Excelsior San Marco Hotel in Citta Bassa brought five more courses.
In future, those bustling crowds will return.
But that night, the restaurant was an encouraging two-thirds occupancy with social distancing in place.
And even a puppy at the next table enjoyed himself and heeded the rules.
Bergamo currently sits in the yellow zone, the lowest of the three tiers Italy has been applying since early November.
This means restaurants and bars open till 6pm, shops are open, ski resorts / pools / gym / museums closed, people can move freely. The other zones are red (strictest) and orange (medium).
Travel into Bergamo
involves providing the results of a negative Covid test taken within 72 hours of arrival.
Or you can get an airport test on arrival and quarantine for 48 hours while waiting for the results.
Any travellers will currently need to self-isolate on return..