Merry Christmas From Bergamo!

The pretty cobblestoned medieval streets of Bergamo's Citta Alta decked out in Christmas finery

With many public transport options not operational today, we organised a private transfer to take us from Milan to Bergamo the city of churches. Most places were closed as expected but the church bells were ringing melodiously! We discovered that Bergamo has a bell ringing tradition which included bells of different pitches. The church bells rang at 12 and 7pm as a call to prayer. The tower also chimed 100 times at 10pm as part of tradition which hailed back to the time when the gates of the citta alta would close at 10pm as part of the curfew. We strolled through the medieval city seeing the locals pour out of churches after Christmas mass (we didn't enter as mass was on) before continuing onto our Christmas Lunch at Trattoria Parietti. The servings were so generous that we literally were full until the next morning. Although we did have space for a sneaky Christmas drink before bed in our PJs! Merry Christmas!

Our base in Bergamo is Locanda Mimmo, a family owned complex of apartments & suites, bistro, restaurant, and gourmet food outlet. The apartment that we stayed in was in a building built in 1357 and smack bang in the middle of citta alta. The accompanying restaurant and bistro were also decent. The owners were super friendly to boot. The included breakfast was a typical Italian breakfast but very generous. We'd highly recommend staying if you do end up venturing to Bergamo.

The children ecstatic not to have to navigate public transport

Our apartment right on the top floor. No lift

All the mod cons were there including a washing machine

Entrance balcony overlooks an ex-monastery which is now a theatre. The bells still toll...

Street right outside our apartment

12th century campanone with clockface added in 15th century. Unfortunately close when we were there

Capella Colleoni, 15th century chapel

Coat of arms depicting Colleoni's balls

Nonna says touch them for good luck!!

Walking towards lunch with views of Bergamo's UNESCO listed venetian walls from the 16th century

We made it to lunch!

Restaurant was decked out in Christmas decorations!

That was the starter!

Still trying to figure out what this means. Guessing not "elopement" zone...

The town was even prettier lit up!

Sneaky drinks and snacks in out PJs!

Don't even know what this was other than it had grapefruit in it and was yummy!

Savoury board

Seriously one of the best apple cakes ever