Bergamo

On the last day of our Italian adventure we visited the town of Bergamo. Really Bergamo is two towns, Upper and Lower Bergamo. The upper town is and early renaissance fortified town while the lower town is the area into which it expanded when fear of invasion was not so great.

Never seen washing lines like this before!

First stop was the lower town's very fine picture gallery. 

This is the wallpaper chosen for the stairs. Unsurprisingly there are signs not to touch.

Of course we start with primitive Madonna and child paintings

A decorative pack of cards!

The equally ubiquitous St Sebastian, coyly in Y-fronts and not so much short full of arrows as taking a couple of darts so as not blemish his skin....

Now that is what you call a beard, from an era where you showed you were an intellect by the length of your beard

After enjoying the gallery, we found a Greek restaurant which offered a tasty and ridiculously cheap lunch before we headed up to the Upper Town.

Amusingly were  were going to take the funicular railway up to the Upper Town, but accidentally walked up instead!

Inevitably we entered the duomo. Lavish decoration doesn't even begin to describe it.

We felt the need to go up the old tower for the views.

A museum was part of the tower exhibition, but it was almost entirely in Italian and had no old exhibits to speak of, all maps and charts.

I needed a gelato to recover...

And we did use the second funicular which goes up from the Upper Town to the peak and its park. And more views....

A good view down to the Upper Town with the Lower Town beyond.

You wouldn't want to chase your ball too far from that football pitch!

We didn't take the train back down to the station but just walked all the way down, which was a pleasant enough walk especially where there was any sort of pavement. Sometimes there wasn't.