September 14, 2019

September 14, 2019

With our Spanish tour complete, we are up early to grab a taxi to the Barcelona airport. Thirty minutes later we are at the gate. We could have slept in another hour. We board our EasyJet flight to Milano, Italy. These intra-European flights can be surprisingly inexpensive, but the passengers are much noisier than in the US. Partly because we are seated in front of a ‘hen party’. The bride-to-be is dressed as a bright pink flamingo and tasked with some kind of scavenger hunt on the plane.

In Milan, we take the hour long train downtown where we find our next set of travelling companions, two of my sisters and their husbands. They are 'rarin’ to go on a 'Mike tour' so we take the Metro to the train station. We just miss our desired train. We hang out for an hour and take the next train to Bergamo, a hill town northeast of Milan. In Bergamo, we walk to the funicular that carries us up to Citta Alta, the Old Town situated high above the new city.

Citta Alta is a World Heritage site because it is part of the Defensive Works of the Venetian Empire. From the funicular we walk to nearby Porta San Giacomo, one of the fortified gates of the walled Old City. This overlook provides great views of the new city below.

We then walk to the main square, Piazza Vecchia. We stop for gelato and wonder why this town off the beaten path is so crowded with tourists. Surprisingly there are three churches on the plaza right next to each other. As we approach, we meet a new bride and groom leaving the Cathedral. They whisk away in a vintage Porsche. The facades of all three churches are highly decorated but nothing like the interiors. The first is the Colleoni Chapel built as a tomb. The second is the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, and the third is the Cathedral or Duomo. The interiors of all three are stunning and in strikingly different styles of Baroque. The richness of the adornments must be a testament to the wealth the Venetian Empire earned from controlling the spice and silk trade coming through the Eastern Mediterranean.

We have nice dinner at a private table in a restaurant in the Old City, and then begin the long process back to Milan. After a funicular and bus, we just miss the next train again. Two hours and a taxi later, we arrive late, back to our Milan accommodations. I fall fast asleep.