Bergamo: Ambassador of Italy

As you could tell from my itinerary, just too many things happened in the past week to make one large blog of my Italian trip, so I'm going to cut it up by city to save everyone a little time.


So to begin, it wasn't the easiest plan to get to Italy. We booked a Ryanair flight, and if you know anything about Ryanair you know they are cheap but tax the hell out of you. They also seem to only fly to major cities or completely obscure ones. In our case, our flight was from Santander to Bergamo (near Milan).

Now anyone that really knows me knows I like to be in charge of the plans, figure out all the time frames of everything, map out where to go and when. I had a guide book of all of the places we were going with maps and a booklet filled with train/bus schedules and costs. And in the first five minutes of our trip my plans were already thrown off. Our bus was fully booked so we would have to catch the later one and then miss the second bus to the airport and instead replace it with a taxi (This became a constant theme in our trip).

Santander has the smallest, ugliest airport I have ever seen in my life. When we entered we found that a lot of the interior was under construction with wires showing and ceilings missing. To make matters worse, there was a giant painting over this terrifying zone that had images of a winged-demon, UFOs, volcanoes, and about a half-dozen other apocalyptic things.

Overall though, the flight experience was fine. The only things that really stuck out was the greeting Ryanair gives you when you finally land. It's something along the lines of: intro 'happy beat,' "Congratulations, you landed! You were on another successful Ryanair flight!" First off, the recording makes you think, "Hmmm, they seemed a little too happy and surprised that we landed." And secondly, what do they play on one of their unsuccessful flights? "Sorry guys, we tried our best. But we'll have better luck next time!"

After we landed I learned my first Italian lesson: Public transportation is free, kind of. We spent about 15 minutes trying to buy tickets for a bus from the airport to the city, but when the bus finally arrived, everyone just piled on without paying anything or showing a ticket. Luckily the bus dropped us off in front of our hotel because it was already past midnight and we were tired from traveling all day.

But like all of our hotels on this trip, we found a surprise when we entered. First we noticed our closet which wasn't actually a closet but a shower. Another interesting addition was a window in the ceiling that could be opened or closed with blinds that could do the same. We chose to have the blinds open which turned into a terrible idea at around 6am.

Bergamo is usually just a stopping or starting point because of Ryanair flights, but most people miss out on it in order to get to Milan or Venice. Since we already had to spend the night there, we decided to see what it was all about.

Bergamo is cool because it is two cities, one old part that sits on a mountain overlooking the more modern part. The old part is surrounded with a wall and is full of narrow streets, cafe terraces, and antique buildings. The loveliest of these was a cathedral that sits right in the middle of the town. Although the beautiful exterior of the chapel is what draws you to the church, it is the interior that keeps you there. Not one inch of it isn't covered with either a sculpture, painting, tapestry or fresco.

Another reason Bergamo will always stay special to me is because that is where I had my first bite of Italian food... and I wasn't disappointed. I ended up choosing a lasagna to kick things off. A safe bet, but for how cheap it was I was a little worried about the final product. Needless to say it was delicious. I finished off the meal with a mango popsicle covered in chocolate sauce.

After eating, we decided that if we were going to make the most of this trip and want to go back and look at these photos over and over again for years to come, I would have to cut my hair. So we found a little place where the hairdresser luckily spoke Spanish and we could explain more or less what I wanted. We also showed a picture of Brad Pitt to help give her a better idea. He seemed like the perfect model for me since we have the same facial structure and all.

With my new look we headed above the high town to a higher town that had a castle that overlooked the entire mountain. Surprisingly this spot appeared to be the place to hang out for athletic gay guys. They just climbed up the mountain, took off their shirts and checked each other out. I think I got caught in the crossfire once. But what do you expect? I was looking like a young Brad Pitt.

This is also the spot where I lost one of my guide books which I had highlighted through and would need for Lago di Como at the end of the trip. I was distraught to say the least.

Time was beginning to run out and we had to catch a train to Verona so we shuffled down the mountain to the train station but not before I experienced my first gelato. Now I realize why everyone in America is trying to open one of these shops. They are freaking delicious! I don't even know what flavors I chose. I just kind of pointed at some Italian words that stood in front of ice cream that appeared to contain chocolate. I didn't go another day without at least a cone and two scoops.

The distance between Bergamo and Verona is around two hours with a lay-over in some small town in between. Shortly after we changed trains, ours stopped. In the middle of a creepy field with almost nothing around. Sara translated an announcement that we would be stuck there for at least 20 minutes. While sitting there we recounted every terrible horror movie we could think of that included people sitting deserted in the middle of a field and thought, "So this is how those writers came up with that idea..."
TO BE CONTINUED