Bergamo; Sunday, 23 September, 2018

I had breakfast then packed my bags, checked out of the hotel and headed over to the bus stop. I caught the bus for a more scenic trip up into the upper town this morning. I’d already spotted the signs saying that a road race was taking place on the Sunday morning, but clearly several tourists who had just arrived on trains were very confused looking at their maps trying to work out if this was the bus to the upper town as it headed off down random side streets to get around the diversion.

Eventually, a good 40 minutes after leaving the lower town, the bus finally arrived in the upper town and I headed into the main square. The one site I hadn’t visited the previous evening was the bell tower of the cathedral, so that’s where I was heading.

On reaching the ticket office I was greeted with the disappointing sign that due to damage the stairs were closed and everyone had to take the lift up to the viewing platform. I caught the glass lift up through the centre of the town, noticing that towards the top there was a massive chunk of step missing – which did make me wonder how we’d get down if there was an emergency.

From the top I took in some of the best views of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and Cathedral, with their ornamentation and statues on the front of the buildings, as well as the views up to the castle and buildings of San Vigilio.

Back down at ground level I had a look around the museum that was in the palazzo attached to the tower. It tells the story of the city through the 16th century, a time when the importance of Venice, which ruled the city, was waning.

From the museum I headed down into the old town near the funicular station where I stopped for a very nice lunch in a café overlooking the square outside the station, a great place for people watching.

Lunch finished it was time to head back down to the hotel to pick up my luggage and then onto the station for my train back to Verona. This time the train was on time, and it was clear from the journey how the inbound train had managed to make up 30 minutes in a 2 hour journey – there is a lot of padding in the timetable. We waited outside Brescia for nearly a quarter of an hour, yet were still on time when we pulled into the platform, for another 15 minute wait there. Even with all the waits we were still 5 minutes early into Verona, which meant I just missed the bus to the airport, so I had a 20-minute wait for the next one.

Not that it mattered as by the time I reached the airport they still hadn’t opened check-in, so I had another 20 minutes or so to wait before I could check-in and head through security to finish the journey home.