www.visitbergamo.net Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

Countries, Culture, Europe

Italy giving quarantine the boot

31st August 2021 funtime65

Pop the Prosecco, Italy is giving quarantine the boot for UK visitors from tomorrow.

All of which means we can make good on our a dopo and a piu tardi vow the last time we met in Bergamo.

That translates to ‘see you later’, which actually means more like ‘see you soon’.

The Orio al Serio Airport was the last I saw of Il Bel Paese nearly a year ago. You may know it as Milan Bergamo.

Of course, Bergamo is a joy to behold and a story to be told in itself.

And it would be my recommendation to stay and take in the charms of the Citta Alta and Citta Bassa, the high and low cities that make up this captivating citta.

Milan and a passion for fashion

Do, of course, feel free to check out its big sister Milano particularly as we are heading into L’Autunno, Autumn and the famous Milan Fashion Week.

All the beautiful people will be stepping out on the runway at Milan Spring/Summer 2022 fashion week from September 21-27.

And I hear that bandanas are in this year).

We hear 42 out of 61 brands will be hosting live physical shows.

From Italian luxury brands including: Fendi, Prada, Armani, Moncler, Versace, Salvatore Ferragamo and Dolce & Gabbana.

FOMO and Lake Como

The Rich Set go for their R&R to Lake Como but it’s by no means beyond your reach.

And besides who says we can’t follow George and Amal around Europe’s hotspots… I have!

Their Italian back yard has its own swanky design with a new and immersive format in the historic centre of Como with the Lake Como Design Festival.

It will present The Originals, a selection of the best international design galleries of the 20^th century, invited to reflect on the theme of icons and their interpretations.

This year, exhibitions will take place inside the Palazzo Mantero.

The historic headquarters of Mantero, the biggest silk producer on Lake Como.

It will also be the first time the Palazzo has been open to the general public.

And where to stay?

Grand living

The Grand Hotel Tremezzo is showcasing Giacomo al Lago.

It is Lake Como’s first lakeside fish restaurant, and new mindful wellness rituals at the Grand Hotel and Villa Sola Cabiati.

As well as Sense of Lake, the Grand Hotel’s all-Italian digital boutique.

It offers a bespoke collection that allows you to indulge in Lake Como living at home.

Visitors to the online boutique can expect a feast of fashion.

There’s locally crafted Como silk scarves, luxurious swimwear, beautiful kaftans, Murano-style glassware, Aqua Como candles, personalised luggage and much more.

So with Italy giving quarantine the boot then the fashionable North is worth checking out and spoiling yourself with a visit.

And who knows, you might very well see George and Amal at the big events or even strolling around the Lake.

Caribbean, Countries, Europe

Italia und Deutschland

30th July 202130th July 2021 funtime65

They’ve been wanting to welcome us back, and now they can… bella bella et Wunderbar Italia und Deutschland.

Italy and Germany are heading up a tranche of countries green-listed for us to visit again.

That also includes two of my other go-to countries Austria and Switzerland.

Ciao now Bergamo

That Italy should be leading the way is reward for the efforts they have made in the last year and a half.

The good people of Bergamo have a claim to the title of huggiest people you’ll meet.

Having got into the Guinness Book of Records just five years ago.

When 11,460 Bergamaschi embraced each other, and that’s 5730 couples.

Huggy bears

All of which is revealed in the council offices, an antidote to the heavy subject of Covid, which I was there to discuss with the Tourism Minister.

And isn’t it refreshing to count in cuddles than casualties?

It is, of course, what we miss in these days of restricted engagement when we travel.

And so when I wanted to hug my host Matteo for his friendship after we said Ciao we knew we could only elbow.

Give us a cuddle

Which used to be what you did when you wanted to get rid of somebody.

Now the peoples of some countries seem to be able to get by without the need for physical contact.

My hugginess then is probably more my Irish than my Scottish half.

Sometimes a smile a clink of glasses and a Prost with your eyes fixed on each other.. a la Germany, the Austrians and the Swiss.

Caribbean dreams

My Tobagonian pals: Auntie Ali, Uncle Kenneth

But quite how my Bajan and Tobagonian pals will get by without enfolding each other in their arms…

I haven’t had the chance to see for myself.

For now I have my sights set again on Italia und Deutschland.

I’ll be back then as soon as I can to throw my arms around Bergamo.

Countries, Culture, Music, UK

Rainy Days and Songdays – singing in the Welsh Valleys

1st March 202128th February 2021 funtime65

The old land of my fathers is dear to me, A land of poets, singers, famous celebrities; Her brave warriors, ardent patriots, for freedom they lost their blood – Welsh National Anthem Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers)

Dydd, Gwyl, Dewi, Hapus as you need to say in a North Wales pub today, St David’s Day…

Only they’re not open (probably) because of lockdown.

I know more about Wales’s lock-in rules than their lockdown regulations.

I spent much of my year in Cardiff as a post-graduate student in lock-ins in Kildare’s Bar.

There was much singing there.

And as a Scots fan at the rugby, although we were drowned out by the Welsh chanting before our biennial drubbing.

So on this day of days for the Welsh, and with a rugby victory over England fresh in their memories from the weekend…

A celebration here of Welsh singers.

You can count on Bassey

Shirley Bassey: And what better introduction to life for a new-born baby boy than Shirley Bassey belting out at you?

And Son and Heir you can thank me later for playing the Queen of Tiger Bay to you when you came out of hospital.

You were put on Earth to be, a part of this great world is thee, and thy life.

The Jones Boyo

Tom Jones: Take a Biblical story, give it a Mariachi feel and employ a Welsh heartthrob crooner.

And you’ve got Tom Jones’s Delilah.

The Jones Boyo is, of course, legendary in Las Vegas.

But, in truth, has a residency at any and every party around the world.

And on cruise ships wandering aimlessly around the English Channel.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Welsh Preachers and Phonics

Design for life: The Manic Street Preachers. http://www.manicstreetpreachers.com

Manic Street Preachers and Stereophonics: Tread Caerphilly, the Manics are pure rat-a-tat-tat rock.

With a skill for a title which we love…

Motorcycle Emptiness, A Design for Life, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next.

While the Rhondda Valleys’ finest, the Phonics make it on the list.

For raspy Kerry Jones and his rendition of the old classic Handbags and Gladrags.

Daddy’s Little Girl called it the Black Black Song… ‘four and twenty blackbirds in a cake and bake them all in a pie.’

Church music

Charlotte Church: Only the Voice of an 11-year-old Angel can sound good over the telephone on TV’s This Morning.

Charlotte went on to sing at Rupert Murdoch and Wendy Deng’s wedding and had a celebrity marriage herself to rugby star Gavin Henson.

The Llandaff, Cardiff lass’s signature tune… Pie Jesu.

Time to say

Kathrerine Jenkins: Beauty, grace and gravitas, that’s Neath‘s finest Kathryn and Pisa‘s Andrea Bocelli.

And their haunting Time To Say Goodbye.

Of course Time To Say Goodbye is inexorably ties up with Italy.

And it played out in the piazza in Bergamo the last time I was allowed out of the country.

Countries, Culture, Europe

Greek vaccine passports

20th February 2021 funtime65

The lyrically named Haris Theoharis brings good news to us lockdown travellers… the carrot of summer holidays to Greece.

The Greek Tourism minister spoke to our public rather than at them like our politicians do when he spoke on British radio this week.

And Haris echoed what I’ve been saying for weeks…

“We don’t want to limit travel to those who have been vaccinated of course, but since we are mandating that before travelling someone has to have a negative test result, this is a waste of resources if people are vaccinated, to be tested every time they travel, the need for this testing could be limited by the vaccination certificate,” he said.

All of which makes perfect sense.

All arrivals into Greece have to present a negative Covid test taken within a 72-hour window, while arrivals from the UK have to undergo a rapid test on arrival as well.

Having bought and then undergone a home test before travelling to the European Covid gateway of Bergamo in the Autumn I can verify that this is best practice.

And guess what, I wore my masks, cleaned my hands, kept my social distance just like all the other Bergamaschi and returned with barely a germ.

Greek leaders

Of course, I’m not holding my breath that we will be allowed what is our right, not a privilege, to be able to travel.

But when we do, and if initially it is only Greece, then I’m mighty glad it is as I could travel this ancient country all my days. Just like Odysseus.

The year 2021 is a very special one too for the Greeks as it is the bicentennial of the 1821 Revolution which saw them extricate themselves from the Ottoman Empire.

It is just the Greeks’ bad luck, and they have had plenty of that in recent years, that the bicentennial should fall during a pandemic.

But these stoical (it is a Greek root and concept) people of ancient stock have been ploughing on regardless and will mark March 25 with pride and as much ceremony as they can.

Pick your venue

When we do get up and travelling again you’ll find me somewhere on Greece.

Be it Athens, one of its islands, Kythera, the second city Thessaloniki, or any of the other islands (Corfu was our honeymoon island).

And when I do, of course, I will be contacting one my go-to providers, my old faithfuls TUI who are promoting holidays there from £188pp.

You know the story by now of me starting off my scribblinh career with the old Thomson Regional Newspapers which was an arm of their travel business.

No training or skill goes to waste. But I still have to master my Zorba dancing and I know where to go to to practise.

Caribbean, Countries, Culture, Europe, Ireland

Out of my tree

5th December 20206th December 2020 funtime65

And watching the Scary One plant her pear trees in the drizzle for National Tree Week has sparked memories of where I’ve been out of my tree around the world.

Let’s hear it for the beardies… on Barbados

Beardy trees

Caribbean: The trees certainly caught the Portuguese mariners” eye when they landed in Barbados..

Not the golden beaches, interestingly (well they have their own) but their bearded Ficus citrifolia.

While we all visit the West Indies for its beaches we miss a lot if we ignore its heartland so you should go safari.

Where Dwayne will tear up the woodland in his Jeep and the bowed bearded trees will flick your face.

Eat one of those famous Tobagonian meals of fish which has just jumped out of the sea and macaroni in Jemma’s Treehouse.

And sleep it off in your own treehouse in Castara Retreats in a hammock naturally.

Tree si

Italy: And my favourite is this much-loved straight up and down tree… it’s very poplar.

My good friend and an Irish Travel Writer of the Year into the bargain, Muriel Bolger, wrote beautifully for me on their appeal, on a trip I sent her on to Northern Italy.

Which I checked out for myself in Bergamo this past Autumn.

I had, of course, familiarised myself with them when I went off-road on my Via Francigena pilgrimage.

Me and the chasing dogs.

Espana fir favor

Spain: And while the summer is when we all descend on Spain’s beaches here’s my ode to Autumn in Espana.

When nature is in a state of undress, and when she is at her most becoming.

The best way to discover a region is by foot and on my Camino in Galicia I trudged the same tracks the Medieval Peregrinos did.

I dare say that the tree growing out of this house was there then too.

The explorer to Tenerife, rather than the sun seeker, will head north, rather than south.

And the rainforest in the Northern Anaga Mountains. All of which you cam enjoy on your CanariaWays.com trip.

The Power of trees

Crane your neck: The Douglas Fir at Powerscourt

Powerscourt, Co. Wicklow, Ireland: And when you live in the Garden County of Wicklow then trees are all around you.

The tallest one in Ireland is on the magnificent Powerscourt Estate, Enniskerry, near Bray, some 60m plus which is it the seventh highest in Europe.

And when you stay in the sumptuous hotel you get a view, and a review, like no other.

And shiver me timbers

Celebrity Edge: And trees are the last thing you’d expect on a cruise ship.

But this is just one of the things which separates the $1bn Celebrity Cruises Edge from the other ships on the seas..

Edge which I boarded two years ago for its inaugural trip from Fort Lauderdale to tbe Bahamas boasts Eden, a forested wonder et land of plants.

But then every on Edge transports you to a different world.

MEET YOU UP A TREE

Countries, Culture, Europe, Food, Food & Wine, Ireland, UK

Bergamo unmasked

15th September 202015th September 2020 funtime65

It was Europe’s COVID-19 Ground Zero when the virus spread to the continent. but Bergamo in Lombardy rallied and is putting on its best, beautiful face again.

And here is an initiative that we are really getting behind… adopting a city through travel booking platform Omio.

Money is being given to the Bergamo Support Fund based on customer bookings to there between September and December.

The holiday provider are promoting a lifestyle tour created by blogger Federico di Nardo.

With a visit to Citta Bassa and Citta Alta with alleys, historic squares and shops, restaurants, cafes and stunning views.

While YouTuber and author Nicolo Balini, founder of Human Safari and SiVola, is luring us with treks in the Val Brembana Mountains.

Where you can enjoy overnight stays in lakeside lodges.

For more on Bergamo look at their website.

While we’ll be getting under the skin of the destinations around the world in this Unmasked series.

By bringing you the societies who are opening their doors and their hearts to us.

We kicked it off with Sweden Unmasked and will be unmasking another one real soon.

And tell us, where would you like me to unmask?