Visiting Bergamo Alta: the discovery of an ancient village

Sorrounded by its Walls, Bergamo Alta astonishes with its ancient atmosphere that you breathe, in addition to the fantastic monuments it contents.

Visiting Bergamo Alta in order to rediscover past emotions, to listen to the one hundred tolls that the Campanone strikes at 10 p.m. but in the past they had signalled the closing time of the gates of the city.

You can reach Bergamo Alta by the cable car that from the Lower City, the modern one, leads up to the Upper City directly to Mercato delle Scarpe. From that point you can go through one of the alleys that twist into the burg and arrive at the Rocca.

It was built for defensive purposes on Sant’Eufemia hill from 1331 to 1336. Nowadays the Rocca offers to the tourists a breathe-taking overlook on the city and it is possible to see also the hill of the Orobie Alps.

A place that wonders you and inspires artists, first of all the composer Gaetano Donizetti which was born in Bergamo in 1797. Torquato Tasso instead dedicated a very beautiful sonnet to the city, gushing over its natural beauties.

Going down in the core of the Upper City you can reach Piazza Vecchia, dominated by the Campanone Tower where other magnificent monuments set, among which there is the Palazzo della Ragione. The south side of the square astonishes: everywhere you look at, there is a wonderful architectural masterpiece. The Duomo, dedicated to the patron Sant’Alessandro, was built from 1459 where another religious monument had been set. Not far you can cherish the wonderful the church of Saint Mary Major, the Colleoni Chapel of the Renaissance and the Baptistery of the Fourteenth century.

You cannot visit the Upper City without having a break in one of the inns and restaurants that offers delicious dishes of the typical cooking of Bergamo. First of all the “Casoncelli” that is to say a kind of meat ravioli dressed with liquified butter, toasted bacon and Grana cheese. Another dish is Polenta “Taragna”, made with rough flour and different cheeses from the nearest valleys. The territory of Bergamo is famous also as a wine area and there are some D.O.C. wine as white Valcalepio and red Valcalepio. Also mineral waters from the valleys are known all over the world and in the same places excellent honey is produced.