This was by far our busiest day, and wouldn’t happen on their standard tour – it was only done so we could see as much as possible of the Lombardy region. Starting at 9:30 am, with much better weather than the previous days, we headed to the nearest city, Bergamo which is about a 30-minutes in good traffic journey.
There are two parts to Bergamo, Alta and Basso which translates to High and Low. You can get between the two using a funicular – although because we had a small bus, we could go straight to the top. The historic city is delightful, where we had a guide to show us the Cathedral and Church, along with the main square and centre of town. With some time to our own, we went to have a coffee in a very nice Café at the Funicular Station which has amazing views over Bergamo Basso. Wendy also gave the tip of the €14 shop in the centre of the city, where the entire content of the ship was €14 each (although mainly ladies’ wear).
Bergamo
The next stop was to a winery just outside of Bergamo, the Castello di Grumello, a vineyard which also supplies the hotel so you can also sample the wine at dinner as well. It’s in a magnificent castle on top of a small hill, with a driveway lined by trees to a courtyard. We had a tour of the cellar, as well as a little bit about the history of the estate and how its strategic positioning was ideal defence from the Venetians.
Castello di Grumello
We headed onwards to the relatively unknown Lake Iseo (at which point it started raining again), and the village of Iseo. Although small, it has several very nice restaurants (including Ice Cream shops!), and a few clothes shops. Like many of the other lakes, they have a boat service that connects to the village of Lovere and others around the lake. On the standard tour with more time, you’re taken for a boat ride on the lake from Lovere to Iseo.
Iseo, Lake Iseo
Being a bank holiday weekend in Italy, the main Liberation Day holiday fell on the Thursday, so the traffic back to the Imagna Valley wasn’t great – although that wasn’t helped by three different accidents on the motorway, most probably caused by the intense rainfall from the thunderstorm which occurred. Still, we got back to the hotel in time for dinner, where they put on a barbeque for the last night, and brought out a cake for dessert in great fanfare to the sound of YMCA…!
The Group in Iseo
