Bergamo Alta

Bergamo has two towns. The lower is nineteenth-century and workaday; the upper sits on a hill inside walls the Venetians built in the sixteenth century, six kilometres of them, listed by UNESCO along with the other Venetian defence works. Inside is a compact medieval and Renaissance town around the Piazza Vecchia, with the Colleoni Chapel, a Renaissance mausoleum with a facade of coloured marble inlay so dense it reads as embroidery, beside the Romanesque basilica. A funicular climbs from the lower town and a second runs on up to San Vigilio for the view across the plain to Milan.

What you actually see

• The Colleoni Chapel - coloured marble inlay across the whole facade.
• Piazza Vecchia - the medieval square at the heart of the upper town.
• The Venetian walls - six kilometres, walkable most of the way round.
• The funiculars - up from the lower town and on to San Vigilio.

When to go

April to June and September to October. The upper town is small and fills with day visitors from Milan at weekends; weekdays and evenings are much better. Winter fog on the plain below, with the upper town above it, is a particular sight.

Honest expectations

The upper town is compact and can be walked in a couple of hours, and it is crowded at weekends. Parking up there is effectively impossible; use the funicular. Bergamo's airport carries a great deal of low-cost traffic that has nothing to do with the town, so flights are cheap but the airport is chaotic.

Nearby

Lake Iseo is half an hour east; Milan is an hour southwest.