If you would like to see details about our journey, check out our itinerary and our bike route.
On the move again. Another beautiful day. We expected a fairly easy ride, with only 33 miles and moderate climbs. The first 10 miles were back through Iseo and around the southern edge of the lake to the west. It was Sunday, and even early in the morning, the traffic was terrible. We were relieved to leave the lake behind us and climb up through an agricultural area. For the next 20 miles or so, we rode through a constantly changing landscape, on a variety of small roads, agricultural tracks, cycle paths along rivers and canals, loops on cobblestone streets through medieval towns. Interesting.
From the map, we could see that the suburbs east of Bergamo had a large footprint, with lots of commercial areas. What we couldn't see was that the bike route passed through miles of urban blight, and many of the restaurants and shops were closed or unappealing. We pushed on through, stopping in a park at about mile 23 and eating from our snack bag.
The sun was hot, and some of the hills were challenging. Ken started to fade about mile 27. We stopped for cold drinks at a roadside cafe, and then kept going.
By the time we reached the lower city of Bergamo, it was late afternoon and hot, and we were more than ready for real food and showers. As we headed into the city, we started seeing crowds of people in bright green t-shirts. About a half mile later, we started the climb into the old upper city and had to get off our bikes and push them through crowds--I mean crowds--of green shirts.
Upper Bergamo is very small, with narrow, cobblestone streets and tall stone buildings and walls. There is only one main street through the city, and our apartment was on the farther end of it. We waded through a sea of people to the arched entranceway to our building.
Finally inside, we unloaded the bikes and began shuttling them and our bags up steep stone steps to the fourth floor.
Where we found our nice apartment. With a shower. And another steep set of stairs to our loft bedroom.
We had enough energy left to walk a few blocks to a big and busy outdoor restaurant and share plates of pasta, polenta, and roasted pork.
The crowds were still swarming when we ducked through the archway to our apartment building around 19:30. A quick Google search told us that we had arrived in Bergamo at the end of a two-day celebration called Milligrande, a noncompetitive walk covering the 1000 steps in the lower and upper towns, to encourage unity between the two municipalities.
So that is why I had trouble finding a place to stay in Bergamo after our original host canceled our reservation a couple months ago.
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| The first half of the route today was interesting, constantly switching from busy highways, to narrow cobblestone streets through old fortified towns, to tiny agricultural roads, to dedicated bike paths, to gravel mountain bike sections. |
