Christmas in Bergamo

Natale adds extra sparkle to Lombardy’s hidden gem

The beautiful city of Bergamo has now become even more magical, adorned with thousands of twinkling lights, colourfully decorated Christmas trees and lovingly recreated nativity scenes, known in Italian as presepi.

Christmas tree lights up a corner of Piazza Vecchia

On Christmas Eve, la Vigilia di Natale, it was warm and sunny with a clear blue sky while people completed their Christmas shopping, with most of the shops open for business, even though it was a Sunday.

Hundreds of people dressed as Santa Claus - Babbo Natale to Italians - competed in a fun run for charity, Babbo Running, handily finishing on Via Sentierone in the Città Bassa, so they could go into the bars still in costume for a refreshing drink afterwards, adding to the festive atmosphere.

Babbo Running finishes in Bergamo's lower town

The night before Christmas, the buses and the funicular railway were running until late, making it possible to go up to the Città Alta to dine out.

Restaurants were open on both Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, Natale, but were all filled to capacity, so it is well worth booking in advance, by either email or telephone, to make sure you get a table at your favourite.

There were Christmas concerts in many of the churches and more informal festive entertainment put on in some of the bars.

The talented Maysingers perform in the Tucans
 Pub in Via Donizetti

Some shops and bars were open on Christmas Day in the morning but there was no public transport running. Thankfully the day dawned bright and clear, with warm sunshine, making the walk up to the Città Alta enjoyable.

Many shops and businesses in the city had followed the custom of leaving a seat outside for Santa, adding to the festive atmosphere.

The shops were all filled with seasonal goodies, such as the traditional Panettone and Pan d’Oro and also torrone, a type of nougat made in Cremona, which is a traditional gift to take when visiting friends on Christmas morning. Negozio Sperlari in Via Solferino, in nearby Cremona, has become famous for making torrone. The concoction of almonds, honey and egg whites was created in the city to mark the marriage of Bianca Maria Visconti to Francesco Sforza in 1441, when Cremona was given to the bride as part of her dowry.

In one supermarket in Bergamo’s Città Bassa, a special offer enabled customers to buy a bottle of Aperol, a bottle of Prosecco and a very large bag of crisps, patatine, for just 10 euros,the makings of a very merry Christmas!

Supermarket special offer

Editor’s note: ‘Particular praise should go to the restaurant Il Sole in Via Colleoni just off Piazza Vecchia in the Città Alta. The restaurant was full for Christmas lunch and offered a very good à la carte menu. The courses were served promptly and all the dishes we ordered were hot and delicious. The staff were cheerful and attentive. It was a lovely convivial atmosphere and I would recommend the restaurant to anyone wishing to enjoy a good Christmas lunch in Bergamo’s Città Alta next year.’

For more information visit www.ilsolebergamo.com

Buon Natale e Buon Anno from Best of Bergamo !

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Novelist trained as chef in San Pellegrino Terme

Novelist Sandrone Dazieri attended a
catering college in San Pellegrino Terme

Sandrone Dazieri, the best-selling author who celebrates his 53^rd birthday today, has a connection with the Bergamo area.

Before fulfilling his ambition to write fiction – he is the author of more than 12 crime thrillers – Dazieri spent 10 years working as a chef, having trained in San Pellegrino Terme.

The town in Val Brembana has long tradition of educating chefs and hotel management staff, being home to a vocational institute for hotelier and catering services.

Born in Cremona, Dazieri worked in locations all over Italy as he pursued his career in cooking, but as an enthusiastic reader of gialli – the word Italians use to describe crime novels on account of their traditional yellow covers – he had ambitions to write and eventually decided to move to Milan in the hope of finding work in the publishing business or journalism.

After working as a proofreader and writing about his favourite genre fiction for the newspaper Il Manifesto, he had his first success as a novelist with Attenti al Gorilla – Beware of the Gorilla – which introduced readers to a complex character, based on himself and even named Sandrone, with two personalities who solves crimes and tackles injustices.

The book spawned a series featuring the same character that not only gained Dazieri enormous popularity among Italian readers but helped him get work as a screenwriter, especially in the area of TV crime dramas.

He was for several years a contributing writer to the hugely popular Canale 5 series Squadra Antimafia.

Now, for the first time, Dazieri has moved into the English language market with Kill the Father, published by Simon & Schuster in London in January 2017.

Already a top-selling title in Italy, the dark crime thriller received such good reviews in the literary sections of English newspapers and magazines that it made the Sunday Times best-sellers list.

The novel features new characters in Colomba Caselli, the chief of the Rome police’s major crimes unit, and Dante Torre, a man who spent 10 years of his childhood imprisoned by a masked kidnapper and is called in to help Caselli solve a crime with all the hallmarks of the one committed by his own captor.

A second in a planned series featuring the same lead characters, entitled Kill the Angel, is due to be published in English next year.

San Pellegrino Terme is well known as the home of the mineral waters bearing the name of the town.

It was a fashionable spa town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a favourite haunt with wealthy industrialists from Bergamo.  Some wonderful Liberty-style architecture remains as a legacy, in the shape of the San Pellegrino Thermal Baths, the Municipal Casino and the Grand Hotel.

The Grand Hotel in San Pellegrino Terme opened in
1904 with 250 luxury guest rooms

The resort’s popularity declined somewhat in the mid-20th century.  The Grand Hotel, an extraordinary building of 162 metres (177 yards) in length on the left bank of the Bremba river, rises to seven storeys high and has 250 guest rooms.

Designed by Milanese architect Romolo Squadrelli and opened in 1904, it once boasted a guest register – now preserved in a San Pellegrino library – that included such names as Queen Margherita of Savoy and other members of the Italian royal family, the composer Pietro Mascagni, General Luigi Cadorna, Nobel Prize winners Eugenio Montale and Salvatore Quasimodo, relatives of King Faruk of Egypt, the film director Federico Fellini, opera singer Mario del Monaco and players from the ‘Grande Inter’ team that dominated Italian football in the 1960s.

Sadly, as business fell away, the hotel could not maintain the standards of luxury demanded to keep its five-star status and it closed in 1979.  It is such a magnificent building, however, that it is hoped that individuals or organisations will come forward to restore it.

This has already happened, to a degree with the equally impressive Municipal Casino on the opposite bank from the Grand Hotel and also designed by Squadrelli, which has not operated as a gambling establishment since 1946 but which now hosts cultural and theatrical events, as well as meetings, congresses, wedding receptions, social dinners, gala evenings, fashion shows, corporate conventions and exhibitions.

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Hail the brilliant new Atalanta!

By Jeremy Culley

'His Majesty' Wayne Rooney

‘His Majesty Wayne Rooney had to run into the Nerazzure mouths of a hungry goddess, who makes a morsel of the soft Toffees of Liverpool’ was the triumphant declaration from the iconic Italian daily Gazzetta dello Sport.

English audiences unsure what to expect as Everton travelled to Italy last night will be under no illusions now, after Rooney and co were so convincingly thumped.

This was the final stage of the rebirth of Atalanta, the Bergamo club making their first foray into European competition since 1991.

The club will be familiar to British fans hooked by Football Italia on Channel 4 in the 90s and noughties, but few would associate it with anything remotely resembling success.

They have perennially been little more than fodder to be brushed aside by the likes of Juventus, Roma, AC Milan and Internazionale.

So this renaissance of ‘La Dea’, or ‘the Goddess’, a nickname stemming from the club being named after the Greek huntress, has something almost mythological about it.

Not least on Thursday as their fans had to traipse 120 miles south to Reggio Emilia to take in the historic occasion, while the ageing Stadio Atleti d’Azzurri Italia in Bergamo is refurbished to meet UEFA regulations.

Being forced into unfamiliar surroundings would surely be a leveller for Everton to seize upon against the Italian upstarts?

Never.

The thousands who travelled turned the temporary home into a cauldron, Atalanta’s fans oozing the optimism and confidence generated last season when the Bergamaschi defied expectations by finishing fourth in Serie A to qualify for the Europa League.

They symbolically finished ahead of both neighbouring Milanese giants, so often having watched their illustrious rivals Inter and Milan hog the limelight.

In 1991, appropriately enough it was Inter who defeated Atalanta 2-0 at the UEFA Cup’s quarter-final stage, sentencing them to a quarter of a century in the European footballing wilderness.

Gian Piero Gasperini, the head
coach of Atalanta

How sweet the Peroni must have tasted in the bars of the Città Alta last night, and back in May when Atalanta finished nine points ahead of Milan and 10 clear of Inter.

Everton were dreadful, their manager Ronald Koeman withering of his players’ efforts, yet their colossal £130m summer spending spree, notwithstanding the free transfer of Rooney, dwarfs the modest outlay spent on the Atalanta revolution.

Andrea Petagna, the pacy scourge of Everton last night, was plucked from AC Milan at a bargain price after spells on loan in Serie B.

Marten de Roon, a £12m Middlesbrough buy ahead of last year’s Premier League season, flopped on Teesside and returned to Bergamo.

And Andreas Cornelius, Cardiff City’s record £7.5m buy in their maiden season in the top flight, was a disaster of such epic proportions in south Wales he left after just six months.

All three, especially the wonderful, electric Petagna, are now integral to Gian Piero Gasperini’s side, which continues to confound doubters.

Gasperini himself, a journeyman manager now at 59, has a somewhat chequered record.

Marten de Roon was a flop in England
with Middlesbrough

Success with Crotone and Genoa earned him the opportunity to revive the fortunes of Atalanta’s neighbours Inter.

He took the helm just over a year on from José Mourinho’s Champions League triumph in 2010, after which a poor period under Rafa Benitez had led to a decline in fortunes.

Gasperini fared disastrously in trying to arrest the slide and was sacked after just five matches in charge, losing four of them.

Rather aptly, the Italian media routinely referred to him as ‘Gasp’ in headlines, such was the panic that seemed to be engulfing San Siro.

It left Gasperini with a career to resurrect, his stock having taken a pounding, and the recent success of Atalanta is as much a story of his revival as it is the club’s. 

The giants of Inter, Roma and Napoli departed Bergamo empty-handed last season as Atalanta surged to six straight wins in October and November.

All season, defeats were rare, with AC Milan and Juventus also unable to claim victory at the intimidating Atleti d’Azzurri.

The Argentine winger Alejandro Gomez, another astute purchase, from the Ukrainians Metalist Kharkiv, was the star, bagging 16 goals and earning a maiden cap for his country in the process.

Much-needed improvements to Atalanta’s home ground are now on the agenda, after the club bought the stadium – still quite a rarity in Italy – from the local council.

Andrea Petagna was
the scourge of Everton

Such upbeat signs are a far cry from seven years ago.

As Inter celebrated Champions League glory, their neighbours in Bergamo were relegated to Serie B, suffering two heavy defeats to their rivals at San Siro before Napoli nailed the coffin lid shut with a 2-0 win on the penultimate weekend.

It was a third relegation in seven years, with real fears voiced for the club’s future, both financially and on the pitch.

But an immediate promotion and successive seasons of survival have shored up the club, with Atalanta heavy reliant on bargain buys and academy graduates to be competitive.

The superb Petagna might not strictly be an Atalanta product but it is they who have catapulted him into the limelight.

He follows an illustrious line of players to have blossomed in Bergamo, with Filippo Inzaghi, Christian Vieri, Paolo Montero and Roberto Donadoni among a star-studded list.

The sale of these stars has always been a necessary evil to keep the club afloat.

Such prudence explains why the Bergamaschi have endured such a long wait for silverware; the 1963 Coppa Italia triumph remains Atalanta’s solitary major trophy.

But perhaps now – possibly even through the Europa League – the wait for a trophy may end.

Certainly the only ‘gasps’ from watching pundits now are in admiration for the job Gian Piero is doing in Bergamo.

‘The Toffees of Liverpool’ are merely one of many teams to come unstuck against the new, brilliant Atalanta.

See Best of Bergamo’s updated Flights Guide

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Porta San Lorenzo or Porta Garibaldi

Porta San Lorenzo is sometimes known as Porta Garibaldi

The oldest and smallest of the gates leading into the Città Alta is Porta San Lorenzo, which leads into the upper city from Via Maironi to the north.

Confusingly, it is also sometimes referred to as Porta Garibaldi, as it was the entrance Giuseppe Garibaldi led his volunteer army through in June 1859 when he entered Bergamo and freed it from Austrian domination.

Porta San Lorenzo used to be the passageway to enter the city for people from the valleys north of Bergamo and from countries beyond the Alps.

Its ancient name comes from the church that used to be there, which was demolished by the Venetian invaders in order to build the walls.

Its second name, Porta Garibaldi, is to recognise the special connection Italy’s military leader had with Bergamo. Garibaldi played a key role in the process of Italian unification and, when he led the Expedition of the Thousand in 1860, some of the soldiers came from Bergamo.

As a reference to this expedition, Bergamo is also called Città dei Mille, the City of the Thousand.

Porta San Lorenzo had to be closed between 1605 and 1627 in order to keep the city safe. It was hard to keep the gate under enough surveillance to prevent an ambush.

The travellers from the valleys, who used to come into Bergamo through this gate, protested to the authorities until it was reopened.

But like the other three gates into the Città Alta, Porta San Lorenzo was always closed at 10 pm, when the bells would ring to signal the beginning of the curfew, which was imposed to guarantee the safety of the city.

See Best of Bergamo’s updated Flights Guide

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New scheme will give Bergamo bus passengers the chance to buy tickets on board

Passengers on the airport bus will soon have
the option to buy a ticket on board

Bergamo today becomes the first city in Italy to offer passengers the opportunity to buy travel tickets on board buses and trams.

Traditionally, passengers are required to buy a ticket before boarding, either at a roadside machine or in a bar or shop approved as a ticket outlet.

From today, the Atb company that operates services in and around Bergamo is introducing ticket machines on board, partly for the convenience of passengers but also to help combat the problem of fare dodging.

The service will be available only on one route for the moment - the T1 tram service between Bergamo's railway station and the town of Albino, to the north-east of the city - but there are plans to introduce it across the whole Atb network if it proves a success.

Passengers will have the option to pay with coins or by using their credit or debit card if it carries the VISA or Mastercard symbol.

There have been concerns that the new system would lead to services being delayed by queues of passengers waiting to use the on-board machines.

Atb have addressed this possibility, however, and will set on-board fares at 30 cents more per journey compared with tickets bought before boarding.

A journey from the airport into the city, for example, would cost €3 if the ticket was bought from a machine on the bus compared with €2.70 if purchased before boarding.

Fare dodging on Bergamo buses is a problem for Atb as it is for all transport providers across Italy.  The company estimates that about six per cent of passenger journeys on its network are completed without a ticket.

The new system may not deter a committed fare dodger but passengers who fail to buy a ticket for other reasons - if they are running late or simply forget, for example - will have the chance to buy on board rather than risk a fine.

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Birth of Bergamo actor Cesare Danova

Cesare Danova in his debut film, The Captain's
Daughter, with co-star Irasema Dilián

The handsome Cesare Danova, who appeared in more than 300 films and TV shows, was born Cesare Deitinger on this day in 1926 in Bergamo.

The son of an Austrian father and an Italian mother, the actor adopted Danova as his professional name after meeting the film producer, Dino de Laurentiis, in Rome.

De Laurentiis gave him a screen test and was so impressed he immediately cast Danova in the 1947 movie The Captain's Daughter, playing alongside established Italian film actor Amedeo Nazzari and the relative newcomer, Vittorio Gassman.

So began a career that was to see Danova star opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Joseph L Mankiewicz's 1963 hit Cleopatra, opposite Elvis Presley and Ann-Margaret in Viva Las Vegas (1964), alongside Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel in Martin Scorsese's cult movie Mean Streets (1973) and as part of a star-studded cast in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978).

In his later years, Danova became a familiar figure on TV screens in America, making appearances in almost all the popular drama series of the 1980s, including Charlie's Angels, Murder, She Wrote, Falcon Crest, Hart to Hart and Mission: Impossible.

He never retired and had appeared in an episode of In the Heat of the Night shortly before he died in 1992 of a heart attack, aged 66.

Cesare Danova in the 1960s, by which time
he was a well-established star of film and TV

Danova was an individual blessed with a wide range of talents. He spoke five languages, was a licensed pilot and a self-taught painter.

Standing 6ft 4ins (1.93m) tall, he was also an accomplished athlete, winning a fencing championship at the age of 15 and playing for the Italian national rugby team at 17. He was also a good golfer and tennis player, an amateur swimming champion, an expert horseman and polo player, and a master archer.

He might have made a career in professional sport but his parents wanted him to become a doctor.  While studying at Rome University, he became interested in acting, but was so determined not to disappoint his parents he pushed himself so hard in his academic work he suffered a nervous breakdown.

It was while he was recuperating that a friend introduced him to De Laurentiis, by then an up-and-coming producer, whose gamble on giving this unknown a part in a prestigious title paid off, launching Danova as a kind of Italian Errol Flynn, cast as the dashing lead in about 20 Italian action-romance movies.

Danova moved to the United States in the 1950s. He had been spotted by MGM when appearing in the German-backed 1955 movie Don Giovanni and signed a long-term contract with the studio in June 1956.

Danova (left) on the set of Mean Streets with Harvey
Keitel and director Martin Scorsese

When he was cast in Cleopatra as one of a trio of lovers vying for the Egyptian queen’s attention alongside Rex Harrison's Julius Caesar and Richard Burton's Marc Antony, he filmed a number of love scenes with Elizabeth Taylor. But after a real-life romance between Taylor and Burton made headlines, the producers decided they needed to exploit the Burton-Taylor chemistry and most of Danova's scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.

But he later won acclaim as the Mafia Don Giovanni Cappa in Mean Streets, Scorsese's brilliant story about life among the small-time hoods in New York , and as corrupt mayor Carmine DePasto in Animal House.

Married twice, Danova had two sons, Marco and Fabrizio, by his first wife, Pamela.

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Antonio Moscheni – Bergamo painter

Antonio Moscheni made his own paints

 using vegetable dye

The painter Antonio Moscheni was born on this day in 1854 in the town of Stezzano, near Bergamo in Lombardy.

Educated at the prestigious Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, where he studied with accomplished masters, he learned the most advanced techniques. He also spent a year in Rome studying the masterpieces of the Vatican. 

When he returned to Bergamo his ability was in great demand. He was commissioned by many churches in the city and the surrounding area and his work at the Sanctuary of Madonna del Campo in his home town of Stezzano was particularly admired.

He exhibited his work in Milan and Turin and had the prospect of a brilliant career ahead of him. 

However in 1889, at the age of 35, Moscheni turned his back on fame to enter the Society of Jesus, enrolling himself as a lay brother.

But it was not the end of his career as an artist.  Aware of his talents, his superiors wasted no time, once his novitiate was completed, in despatching him to Croatia and Albania to work on Jesuit churches, and on his return sending him to Piacenza and Modena .

Moscheni is perhaps best known for the extraordinary frescoes he created in the chapel of St Aloysius College in Mangalore , India .

St Aloysius, situated in the state of Karnataka in south-west India, was built by Italian Jesuit Missionaries in 1880 and the chapel was added four years later.  A beautiful building, it would not look out of place in Rome and the Baroque extravagance of Moscheni's work, which adorns almost every available wall space and ceiling, makes it unique in India .

The chapel welcomes thousands of visitors each year simply to marvel at Moscheni's art for the vibrance of his colours and the intricacy of the detail.

Scenes depicted include the life of St. Aloysius, who as the Italian aristocrat Aloysius Gonzaga became a Jesuit and was studying in Rome when he died at the age of just 23, having devoted himself to caring for the victims of an outbreak of plague.

Also painted are the Apostles, the lives of the Saints and the life of Jesus. The picture of Jesus with a group of children on the rear wall, opposite the main altar, is considered the best of Moscheni’s work. 

The artist's skill enabled him to create the illusion of three dimensions, so that figures painted on flat walls, for example, appear at first glance to be statues.

Another interesting feature is the chapel floor, all of which is paved with stones brought from Bergamo which again creates the perception of three dimensions. Visitors at first can mistake the tiles for steps. 

Moscheni went to India in 1898 and remarkably, often hanging precariously from scaffolding, he painted the entire 829 square metres of surface area single-handed, using paints he made using vegetable dyes. The whole project took two and a half years.

Moscheni was also asked to decorate the Hospital Chapel at Kankanady, a local church and the Seminary of Mangalore before being invited to paint frescoes at the Holy Name Cathedral in Mumbai.

Moscheni moved from there to the Basilica of Santa Cruz at Fort Kochi, in the state of Kerala, at the personal invitation of the Bishop in 1905.  Sadly, Moscheni fell ill with dysentery while he was working there, although he battled against the illness and finished the job.

He died in November 1905, four days before the consecration of the church, and is said to have been buried at the Carmelite Monastery in Manjummel. 

Villa Moscheni is still a private home

Stezzano, situated just outside Bergamo, not far from the airport at Orio al Serio, marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Moscheni in 2005 when a bust created by a local sculptor, Learco Campana, was unveiled in the Biblioteca Comunale. 

Moscheni's home in Stezzano, the Villa Moscheni, in Via Carrara Beroa, is still in private ownership and includes some frescoes by Moscheni.

The historic centre of Stezzano is of medieval origin and has changed little in appearance. It is mainly characterised by former farmhouses and four substantial 17th century villas - the Villa Zanchi, Villa Morlani, Villa Maffeis and Villa Moroni, which dominates the picturesque Piazza Libertà.  

The grand parish church of San Giovanni Battista is a short distance away in Piazza Dante. The Sanctuary of Madonna dei Campi, which has works by Moscheni, can be found a little out of the centre, on the road towards Grumello del Piano. 

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NH Bergamo – a Best of Bergamo recommended hotel

The smart and modern NH Bergamo hotel

The immaculate and comfortable NH Bergamo is in a great location right in the centre of Bergamo’s lower town, the Città Bassa.

This modern hotel in Via Paleocapa is close to the railway station and the stops for buses going to the upper town, the Città Alta, or to Bergamo Caravaggio airport.

It is handy for the best shops and restaurants in the lower town, but within walking distance of the funicular railway that ferries passengers up to the historic Città Alta.

The smart, well-designed hotel has 88 comfortable guest rooms, all with TV, mini bar and free Wi-Fi.

An excellent buffet breakfast is served daily on the ground floor of the hotel and there is a 24-hour bar service.

The Best of Bergamo Editor says: 'I have really enjoyed my stays at the NH Bergamo. The room was quiet and I was able to sleep soundly, even though I was in the centre of the lower town and close to the main street. But it was great to be able to leave the hotel and be so close to all the delights of the Città Bassa and the transport links.'

From the airport, you can either take a reasonably priced taxi, or buy a ticket for the No 1 bus that passes the railway station before turning along Viale Papa Giovanni XXIII in the direction of the Città Alta. 

The hotel is in Via Paleocapa, which goes off the main street on the left. The street is across the road and a short distance from the bus stop outside the beautiful church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The church is a good landmark, on the corner of Viale Papa Giovanni XXIII and Porta Nuova, with its 19th century green cupola topped with a golden statue.

Book a room at the NH Bergamo with Hotels.com or Expedia.co.uk

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