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..
The international hotelier shared his thoughts on Italy, Covid and how we should get tourism back in track.
He reported that the holiday experience is seemless in Sardinia at his Forte Village Resort where the health and safety measures are not invasive.
And but for the staff wearing masks and the regulations we are all getting used to follow you wouldn’t know things were any different.
Sir Rocco has been lobbying government throughout the crisis.
Put it on a pedestal
And the news of airport testing, at £80 with the results within an hour, being introduced at Heathrow for flights to Hong Kong that opens up an opportunity for Italy.
Before I flew to Bergamo last week I had to get a home test from a pharmacy, pay £150, courier it £10) and await the test’s return 24 hours later.
All within a 72-hour window before departure which Italy requires.
I asked Sir Rocco if he had lobbied the Scottish Government too.
My cup of ciocolatta: Bergamo
‘The First Minister is determined to make it more draconic than the rest of the UK,’ he told me.
‘I’m not very confident she would listen. It would fall on deaf ears.’
Perche? I can vouch that Italy, the entry point for the virus, is coping better than us with it now.
Forza Italia and Scotland and the UK, I mean Mamma Mia!
Balearic amigo
And word comes to us too of how our friends in the Balearic and Canary Islands are being proactive and inventive too in trying to get us back to their shores.
It is something of a bug bear of mine that a special case was not made for the Spanish islands.
But that was then.
The Spanish Government has put forward this protocol and it is worth reading.
The taskforce suggests a test pre-departure, funded by the visitor, and a test prior to their returning to their home country. At no cost to them.
If visitors are requested to self-isolate while they are away accommodation would be provided.
Me and my pals Lizzie and Mathew In Tenerife
If any additional medical costs is required this would be covered.
Today the accumulated infection rate in the Canaries was 35.29 per 100,000 are (based on the last 14 days).
In the UK it is 329.2 per 100,000.
Drink up and Kissimmee quick
The Margaritaville cocktail king
And after all that I was ready for Happy Hour with some of my favourite people in the Travel world, Experience Kissimmee.
They sent me a hamper with Margarita glass, can… and Covid accessories, branded mask and gel.
And a very helpful Floridian cocktail king from Margaritaville showed us how to make them.
And the king cocktail drinker himself
I’ll share all their news as soon as… Happy Hour extended into Happy Evening.
Time to say goodbye, Paesi che non ho mai, veduto e vissuto con te, Adesso si, il vivro, con te partiro, su navi per mari che, io lo so, no, no, non esistono piu, it’s time to say goodbye. – Andrea Boccelli
Una ciocolatta di caldo densa at Balzer in Bergamo
Ciao Bergamo e grazie mille. Molamia, miei amici, stay strong my friends.
It’s time to say goodbye, although on my terms and not Signore Johnson’s.
I have made it my mission to come to Bergamo since the start of the outbreak to find out why the pandemic came here first.
What it was like for the Bergamoschi to live through.
And something a little stronger
And how they are living today and how they see tomorrow.
Peace to Bergamo
The overriding feeling I have found is one of peace (except for the raucous ragazzi e ragazze outside my window at midnight although this is how the young should be.)
I spend my last afternoon reading the stories on the picture boards in the piazza they are using as a testing centre.
And, of course, nothing tells a story quite like a picture, or a photograph.
Mars, Venus and love in Accademia Carrera
I wish mia moglie, the long insufferable (sorry, suffering) Mrs M was here to put her award-winning photo skills to work.
A work of art
I have come too from the Academia Carrera where I have been enjoying Titian, Canaletto and trying out Lotto (no, not the lottery, but the artist.
I have just enough time to treat myself to my Italian guilt pleasure, una ciocolatta di calda densa, a hot chocolate that wants to be a dessert.
What’s Italian for phew’ I’ve been walked off my piedi today in Bergamo Citt’alta e Citta Bassa (City High and City Low).
And phew too… Johnson, Schnapps and Co. are too late to quarantine me on my return. I was always flying back tomorrow evening anyway, so Sunday is troppo tardi, idioti!
David and Goliath: The Basilica
That’s if I don’t decide to quarantine myself anyway with the Bergamoschi (the people that is, not the local sheepdogs who share their name. Although…!)
La Prima Citta
Bergamo, as we all know by now, is where Covid-19 entered Europe.
To the greater glory of God
But they have taken the worst it can offer and are coming out the other side, and will prevail.
Or as they say here ‘Molamia’ (stay strong).
Chin-Chin
The Bergamoschi have done just that since Covid visited in March and shut the town off from the rest of Lombardy, Italy, and the world for four months.
To the greater glory of beer: With Matteo
But not from each other… or not in the ways that matter.
Matteo, my tour guide volunteered to help out the old and infirm.
Restaurateur Niccolo the same with his original ice cream and food.
Stay strong: The Bergamo credo
And model citizen Emmanuele, who lives in a palazzo on the hill too, as a volunteer.
All are heroes… and all Bergamoschi are an example to us all
La Storia
Perhaps it is in the blood. It is certainly in their history.
I am standing in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Ciitt’alta.
The Bergamo bear: With Matteo and Atalanta Bear
Where the Bergamoschi built a new church after they were delivered from the plague in the 12th century.
And filled it with frescoes, magnificent paintings and special picture boards of other scenes where humanity prevailed over adversity.
Noah anyone?
Pasta Basta
Ma mi scusi. I have just eaten my own weight in food and drunk today, a small lago di vino and must now repair to my bed in the Hotel Excelsior San Marco.
I scream for ice cream: With Niccolo
A Domani.
And if you want to slip on the Italian Boot to follow in my footsteps, here’s my Via Francigena, into Rome
While as the Veneto region is just over the horizon to the east, here’s the City of Frescoes Padova.
My cup of ciocolatta: Bergamo
