August 30, 2006
Olgiasca - Bergamo
I drew the curtains to more blue sky this morning, but with a difference; bushes and trees were moving. From side to side that is, we hadn't woken up to Il Giorno dei Triffidi. From the room it was impossible to tell whose side this movement of air was on. A step outside before breakfast gave it away. It wasn't too warm, so a northerly and we're southbound. A result, as we used to say.
We set off into this new, blue, windy morning with mixed feelings. On the one hand, ahead of us, we had a fast[ish] wind-assisted ride to our destination and on the other, it was our destination. The lake water was cresting, in places windsurfers were taking advantage of the day. We stopped to take pictures. The Superstrada takes the bulk of traffic away from the eastern shore of Lake Como. So the first part of the ride was low on traffic and we quietly enjoyed the push from the wind, until a merging of the two routes, two or three kilometres short of Lecco, where we were forced to share the facilities for perhaps 1km.
Lecco looked prosperous, stylish and probably expensive. On the way out of town, we stopped to use a public toilet in a new shopping mall. A few kilometres up the road we were back in industrial Italy. A quiet back-road route into Bergamo looked like more trouble than it was worth, so we bit the bullet and followed the main road all the way. Near Calolzio-Corte, by a factory gate, we stopped briefly to eat ripe peaches and chocolate, no picnic on the road today.
At Cisano di Bergamasco the road took an upward turn, although not of Alpine severity, the by now, heavy traffic made it a less than exhilarating stretch. After the climb, the road came with a shoulder and a good surface, so the downhill run towards Bergamo felt like reward. At a strategic roundabout, approaching at speed, I continued straight ahead in the direction of Milan. Barbara, more circumspect, followed the signing for Bergamo. By the time I realised my mistake, Barbara was nowhere to be seen. Some more work on the cell-phone sorted out my mis-direction and within 20 minutes we were at the railway station in Bergamo. I called into the nearby TIC and now equipped with a map, we found a hotel in the town centre.
After checking in, stowing the bikes and showering we went out to explore. All I had previously known about Bergamo was that it's professional football team was called Atalanta and had been relegated to Serie B. [from this season it's been renamed Atalanta Bergamo and has returned to Serie A] Close to our departure, I had read somewhere that it was a dull industrial town in the foothills of the Alps. It turned out to be shinier than that.
We walked northwards up the elegant residential avenue leading to the funicular railway for La Citta Alta, the High Town. [alternatively, la Citta Vecchia, the Old Town], stopping off for yet more picnic supplies on the way. In the funicular car we spoke to two lively schoolteachers, of a certain age, from Ayr in Scotland who were taking an end of summer break. 'There's another funicular railway,' they told us, 'that goes even higher.' We emerged from the station into, architecturally speaking, a different century: Narrow streets, a piazza, churches, also restaurants, bars, modish clothes shops, specialist confectioners and bakers enjoyed by both tourists and locals. It all looked beautiful in the early evening light. We walked uphill a little, back outside the city walls and sat down to eat by a water fountain. Cyclists were using the steep roads wrapped around the citadel for training, they chatted at the fountain as they filled their bottles. The weather was perfect, our Alpine morning wind was long gone.
We took a different, slow route back to the hotel. We re-emerged about 10-30 to eat pizza around the corner, then tried out a couple of 'low town' bars before bed.
Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 633 km (393 miles)
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