Sunday, 22 September 2024, Stresa to Verona via Bergamo and Franciacorta, Due Torri Hotel
Written 18 December 2024
We were scheduled to leave Stresa at 8 am, so our tour director arranged for the hotel to open breakfast at 7 am rather than 7:30 am, to give us sufficient time. But the bus driver said that, because it was Sunday, traffic would be light and we could leave at 8:20 am. Just as well, since the hotel staff weren't really ready for us when they opened.
By the time we finished breakfast, our luggage had been collected and loaded onto the bus, so off we went to Bergamo. At the left here is the gate we passed through from the hotel's courtyard to the street outside. At the right is another memorial in the lakeside park. There really is one every few yards all the way through town.
As usual, before arriving at our destination, we made a stop at an Autogrille. At the left here is an eyecatching, not to say blinding, display of beverages labeled "Ready to drink aperitivo Italiano." They were also variously labeled Hugo, Spritzzoso, Prosecco, and Prosecco Aurea Limited Edition. The 50%-off prices ranged from 10 euros a bottle for the first two to 13 euros for the last.
At the right is a popular item in shops like this—Trolli brand "Big Burgers." For scale, the object on the table behind them is a credit-card reader. They are, in fact, fruit-flavored gummy candies, and they apparently come in mini and jumbo sizes as well.
I had heard of Bergamo, but I had no idea what it was known for. According to Danny, it's textiles, initially woolen but later silk, linen, and cotton. It also turns out to be just a really nice little historic town.
The newer part of the city is down on the flat, but the historic old town is, of course, up on a sort of mesa, where it was easier to defend in time of war. Its streets can't accommodate tourist buses, or any motor traffic at all, so the city operates two funiculars to carry pedestrians up and down, but they also run a shuttle-bus service for groups like ours. We all piled on for the ride up the hill to a drop-off point just outside old the city walls.
Before leading us through the gate into the city, our guide took us to the edge of a precipice overlooking a deep rural valley, right within the town, where livestock is still raised. In the left-hand photo, you can see apartment buildings on the other side.
The right-hand photo is a closer view (by telephoto) revealing that the little dark blotch just above the distal end of the maple branch that cuts across the view is actually a group of horses gathered at a feeding station.
The city includes 4700 acres of green space, where they raise donkeys, goats, and sheep as well as the horses we saw. The locals are of Celtic origin, descended from a people called the Orobii, who were shepherds.
The place was a little crowded because we happened to be there on the day of an annual fun run/walk around the perimeter of the old medieval walls, which are now topped by gardens. Whole families had come to walk or run together. The perimeter is about 600 m, and four gates face the cardinal compass points (leading to Milan, Lake Como, and the northern part of the territory). From St. Andrews' platform on the wall, on a very clear day, you can see the end of the Appenines. From other viewing platforms around the edge, when it's clear, you can see the skyscrapers of Milan. The mountains we can see to the north are still only pre-Alps. Bergamo is one of three major cities in this region and has a population of 120,000.
The current population are descended from a mixture of the Orobii and people who came up from the south and mixed with them. The Romans arrived ca. 49 BC, and by the first century AD, the hill village was transformed. Once the Romans left, the barbarians came, but Bergamo remained barbarian free and was independent until Milan arrived, about 1000 AD. The Milanese cut all the grape vines and burned them. Locals were imprisoned in the citadel of Bergamo, on the big square we saw later. The city suffered 90 years of terrible violence; they still don't like the Milanese. They welcomed the Venetians, who ousted the Milanese, and still say they look toward the sunrise and Venice, not Milan. The walls were built while the Venetians ruled the city; Bergamo was the last town on the border between Venice and Milan, so they fortified it.
San Pelegrino water comes from Bergamo; they have famous springs. Other current exports include synthetic fiber, which has largely replaced the wool they used to produce.
After this orientation talk, the local guide led us past this courtyard lined with café tables and through one of the gates into the city proper. Atop the gate, viewed (at the right) back from inside the wall, is the "small bell tower," the rendez-vous point for our return to the buses later.
The guy in the blue flowered shirt at the lower right corner of the left-hand photo is one of our party, but all those other folks you see wearing blue tee-shirts in these photos and subsequent ones, are participants in the fun run.
p>
At the left here is the "large bell tower," which we passed farther along in our walking tour. It's the Campanone or the Torre Civicahas, and it has a five-ton bell.
Back in the day, like 1224 AD, when it was built, the bell struck 180 times (ringing for about half an hour) each evening to warn everyone to get inside the gates before they closed for the night. Now, it rings only 100 times each evening. For that, a hammer strikes the outside of the bell; to ring the hours, they use the clapper inside the bell. Or maybe it's the other way around. Anyway, the two sound completely different.
In the course of the trip, we encountered a variety of paving styles, several of which were exemplified in Bergamo. This one is bricks (flat and square, more like what we might call terra cotta tiles), set on edge is a herringbone pattern.
The herringbone paving was used along the street that led us into the center of town, which was lined with little shops, many featuring food.
Above the street at an important intersection hung this disk, resembling a giant DVD. Its underside was painted with details from an altarpiece here in town that was painted by Lorenzo Lotto (1480–1556).
The shop at the left here was offering grapes, two kinds of plums, figs, asparagus, and strawberries.
I'm not sure whether the wares featured in the right-hand photo would be considered pizza or focaccia. They were slabs of already-baked bread topped with lavish dollops of white cheese (ricotta? fresh mozzarella?) and items like tomatoes and basil, Canadian bacon, boiled ham, wedges of harder cheeses, smoked salmon drizzled with a creamy sauce, mushrooms, and onions. Some in the background seemed to have been split and made into sandwiches. They all looked yummy!
The center of the main square was graced by this fountain surrounded by stone lions, snakes, and sphinxes. That's our local guide in blue and yellow.
With my back to the fountain, I faced this white, colonnaded town hall. The guide assured us that this space is not usually full of potted plants and trees, but some sort of vegetation festival was going on, and they had all been brought in for the occasion.
Beyond the main square was the church square, standing before these buildings. As I understand it, the ornate dome-topped structure is not the facade of the actual basilica of St. Mary but the personal mausoleum of the condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni. He actually had a portion of the church demolished to make space for it, and apparently not even the church records make clear whether he had permission to do so or just went ahead. The cathedral of St. Alexander is in there somewhere, too.
Colleoni was a prominent citizen of Bergamo who went on to become captain-general of the Republic of Venice. He is described as "the foremost tactician and disciplinarian of the 15th century."
The hexagonal building with the angel on top is probably the baptistry.
At the left here is the iron gate in front of the mausoleum, which features Colleoni's crest. It is decorated with three objects that stand out from being rubbed shiny by so many passing hands. They are said to represent something most men have only two of but of which Colleoni was reputed to have three.
We didn't go inside the basilica (it was Sunday, and services were in progress) or the mausoleum, but we did visit the crypt, where we saw the polychrome frescos shown here at the right.
Below the crypt, three layers of Roman ruins have been unearthed. Excavations began in 2004.
On our walk back through town toward the rendezvous point, I found that the pizza/focaccia window had been rearranged, and the trays of whimsical cookies on the shelf below had been replenished. This assortment included cookies depicting Mickey Mouse, all four mutant ninja turtles, one-eyed pirates, Homer Simpson, pink-eared pigs, Hello Kitty, Charlie Brown, ladybugs, and a few I couldn't identify—maybe bats, Betty Boop, and/or the flying spaghetti monster. The Spiderman and minion cookies from the photo displayed above had disappeared.
We also passed a shop displaying these magnificent porcini mushrooms. The sign says "Don't touch, thanks."
One more shop window (sorry, I like shop windows), this one displaying wine, salami, three kinds of fresh ready-to-cook pasta an one of gnocchi, a couple more cold cuts, a focaccia sandwich, and a sort of potato quiche.
Back at the rendezvous point, we were a little early, so we sat on a stone bench in a small tree-lined park to wait.
That's where I got this photo of what the locals refer to facetiously as "Bergamasque carpet," with the toe of my foot for scale. American tourists grumble all the time about having to walk on cobblestones, but they usually just mean those small square paving stones the French call "pavés," which, though rough, are basically flat on top. These, on the other hand are genuine cobblestones—way tougher on the feet.
Other interesting things about Bergamo:
Once we were all reassembled and back in the bus on our way to lunch, we started seeing vineyards by the side of the road.
Our destination was a winery in the Franciacorta region called Al Rocol. In addition to making wine and olive oil, the family who have owned and run it for four generations also practice "agritourism"—they run a restaurant that features local products, including their own wine and oil, as well as renting out a few rooms to those curious about the working of the farm.
To complement their "champagne" (identical in all details of production to real champagne, but forbidden to bear the name, which is a registered trademark of the region of France by that name), they served us hors d'oeuvres: slices of a delicious soft salami, their own olives on paper-wrapped toothpicks, little squares of pizza, and chunks of "grana Padano," a Parmesan-like cheese that again isn't produced close enough to Parma to use the name.
These hors d'oeuvres were served in a cellar with a low vaulted ceiling by employees wearing shirts that said "In vino veritas" on the back.
In addition to their sparkling wines (the ones the region is best known for), Al Rocol produces ordinary table wines. At the right here is the label on a large stainless steel tank we passed on our tour. It reads "Vino bianco generico, 11.5%, 1.9 euros/liter."
At the left here is a map of the Franciacorta region. The lake at the top is Lago d'Iseo, with the town of Iseo on its southern bank.
At the right is a closer view of the map. At the top right is the lower left corner of the large white label. If you follow the dark line of a ridge southwest from it, you come to the town of Omé, and Al Rocol is just south of Omé.
Our winery tour guide explained the difference between DOC wines and DOCG wines. The first are of controlled origin, and the second are also guaranteed to use only grapes originating in the same region where the wine is made. Below those two designations are lesser ones, like ITG ("i" stands for "indicazione," whereas "d" stands for "denominazione") and VT (table wine).
Al Rocol is run by the fourth generation of the same family. It's 28 acres, and it produces 80,000 bottles a year; Franciacorta is both the wine they produce most of and the name of the region. All their vines are up on terraces up on the mountains and produce less per acre than those down in the flat part. They grow chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot blanc as well as cherobinos (sp?), cabernet sauvignon, and merlot for the reds, atto and cortafranca. The reds are picked starting now, all by hand. They use a gentle press for the white grapes and use only the first pressing. The second pressing is used for table wine, the third pressing for wine that the locals come up with their own bottles to fill from a spigot, and the last of the residue for grappa. Al Rocol doesn't make grappa; they take the residue to the local distillery.
The first fermentation is done in large steel tanks and runs until March. Then it's bottled with yeast and sugar, according to the "méthode champenoise" (but they can't call it that; they call it the "classic" process instead). The bottles are left in a horizontal position for at least 18 months after bottling (for vintage quality, at least 40 months; 60 months for reserve quality). They they are riddled twice a day for a month, by hand, before the disgorgement process (called "sboccamento" in Italian).
They also make a "Franciacorta sauterne," which is less carbonated than regular "classic" process.
They are not required to put the year is not required on the label, but they feel it is their responsibility to add it.
After this tour, we were ushered to the restaurant pavilion for lunch.
The first course was a multipart assortment starting with this plate that included a bruschetta, a wedge of a thin quiche-like tart, and two kinds of cheese with olive oil and progressed through slices of excellent prosciutto and then a platter of thinly sliced and grilled zucchini, eggplant, and peppers.
Then we were served this plate of rolled pasta with tomatoes, herbs, cheese, basil, and olives.
The wines at lunch were a still dry white made from chardonnay, a merlot that had spent a year in oak, and a 60/40 cabernet sauvignon/merlot blend.
Dessert was vanilla ice cream with strawberry sauce.
Overhead were trellises of vines bearing ripe purple grapes.
Strangely, the dining area was decorated with posters for Australian singers and singing groups, like Johnny Farman Barnam, Little River, and Billy Thorpe.
Then it was once more into the buses and off to Due Torri Hotel in Verona, where we'll be for the next two nights. Our big bus couldn't get anywhere near it through the tiny Renaissance-era streets, so we were met on the outskirts of the old town by a small fleet of limo vans which ferried us there.
Here's a shot of the hotel's grand lobby. By the time we settled in, it was 6 pm, so again David and I just stayed in the hotel and had a lovely supper at their "Bistro."
The amuse bouche was marinated egg in the form of a bavaroise with black olives, shown here at the right.
At the left here is the bread service—focaccio, brown breadsticks, and rustic loaves.
I started with raw langoustines with caviar and almonds in a champagne sauce, garnished with nasturtium leaves. Good, but I don't think langoustines are better raw than cooked.
David chose the gazpacho, also garnished with nasturtium leaves. In France that frilly part of the garnish would be made of baked crêpe batter and would be fragile, crisp, and tasty. In Italy, that kind of thing was the consistency of uncooked dried pasta, too hard to chew, so it usually wound up on the edge of the plate at the end.
My pasta course was cheese and pepper tagliolino with red prawns and lime. Yummy.
David's was ravioli stuffed with ricotta and dressed with potatoes, tomatoes, olives and capers.
For dessert, we split their dessert of chocolate, caramel, and vanilla ice milk.
The mignardises consisted of a raspberry macaron, cherry gelee, chocolate almond, a tiny tart of chocolate and a bit of raspberry, and a little square of that almond cookie we had elsewhere, with gelee of grappa on top.
At the right is another shot of a different section of the lobby.
Finally, on the way to the elevators, I spotted this amazing, what, drawing? Print? Anyway, it's a sort of "family tree" of the history of Italy, starting with mostly unlabeled roots at the bottom, then growing upward through time, splitting into many regions, cultures, etc. Labels I can read include "Piemonte" and "Venezia." Across the whole thing just below the level of the unfortunate glaring zigzag reflection, is printed in large red letters "Epoca Napoleonica."
Finally, in the right-hand photo, you can see it all come together again as the united nation of Italy. The right-hand shot is in better focus, and by blowing it up I can see that the branches and twigs are all heavily annotated; they're covered with writing, all of it unfortunately too small to read in my photos. Cool concept, though.
Merits and demerits of the Due Torri Verona:
Good points: The room comes with two luggage racks (though both are small), two free pints of still water in cartons, electrial outlets like the ones at the last place (but this time enough of them), several waste baskets, hard bars of soap, a vanity set and lots of toiletries, a tub with both a rain shower and a hand-held shower, two each bath towels and hand towels, and washcloths and bathmat. The luggage arrived in under 20 minutes.Not so good points: Lots of hanging space, but the only drawers are too shallow for anything but handkerchiefs. No desk, but two chairs and little round table. No bedshide tables, just tiny bedside shelves.
Previous entry List of Entries Next entry