Yesterday Jordan and I took a brief trip out to Bergamo, a town about an hour away from Milano. We headed out with little knowledge of what the town had to offer, other than a vague memory of what I had read on the town last summer. Bergamo, is divided in two parts: the walled hilltop citta alta, and the lower modern town, citta bassa. As we made our way up the main street from the train station, headed to the funicular it was fun to watch Jordan's reaction to the town. So far on his trip in Italy he had been to Roma, Costiero Amalfitano, and Mailno. Quite a bit different than the smaller city of Bergamo. He commented on how clean and nice the town was, and how it reminded him of Corvallis. In a way, I suppose that is true, especially now that Corvallis has re-done its entire downtown river front.

As we stepped off the funicular at the top, it was obvious that Jordan hadn't seen anything like this before, as he imediately started taking photos of the street straight ahead of us. :) I had grabbed a small map of the town from the funicular, and off we walked towards Piazza Vecchia. While it was indeed a beautiful piazza, I was a little dissapointed in it after the reviews I had heard of it. There were some interesting features of it, yet nothing that made me gasp. Perhaps I've become spoiled with the architecture of Italy to where it takes something much more spectacular to impress me these days. Not to say that I didn't appreciate the piazza, it just didnt hit me with that sense of wonderment that others have. Jordan however seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, and I was glad that he was getting the chance to see something different. Although not quite the same as the hilltowns of central Italy, it was a good substitute :)

After Piazza Vecchia we headed over to Piazza del Duomo, where unfortunately the cathedral was underconstruction. However, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore seemed to be the main draw to the piazza anyways. As I ventured closer to the basilica, I noticed something about the lions at the base of the columns, that I had not noticed elsewhere. The front half of the lions, that which stuck out past the overhang of the roof, was severly deteriorated in comparision to the back half. I imagine this is front a number of reasons, all to be expected. The difference between the two halfs however, was so strong. Surely I must have seen somewhere else before, but the fact that I couldn't remember having done so struck me as odd. In my memory, things are either deteriorated, or not deteriorated. But never half and half.

Moving on we wandered through the back streets of the town, making a loop past Piazza Macscheroni and back up to Piazza Vecchia. Along the way the designers in us broke out- as I was busy trying to get a shot of a water bottle laying on the ground a few inches away from its rain soaked label, someone came around the corner on their scooter and stopped just short of me, trying not to enter my shot. I quickly waived them on as i knew that it would take me another min to get the angle I wanted. It was quite nice of them to stop... I can only imagine how confussed they were as to what I was taking a photo of. :)

We stopped in Piazza Vecchia and grabbed a slice of pizza, before continueing on to La Rocca. As we approached, we noticed an extraordinary amount of cats hanging around the premises. I assume it must be some sort of cat sanctuary on the grounds. They were rather adorable, and I must have shot an entire roll of film just of them. The views from the park at La Rocca were undoubtably the most picturesque of the day. We were fortunate that the rain that has seemed to be here all week let up for our entire visit, and the sky even cleared some. Still, I would like to go back on a clear day as I imagine the views can only get better.

We only had a couple hours to spend in Bergamo, and she didn't have time to go inside anything, climb the tower, or explore the lower town. I'd like to return for another visit to do so. I'd also like to head up to the Orti Botanico Lorenzo Rota, which I've read has even more spectacular views (I recieved another box yesterday, this one containing my guidebook to Italy! too bad I hadn't a chance to re-read it before hand). Overall it made for a very nice quick trip. I shot all of my photos with film, but I'll try and steal some of Jordans digital shots and add them in later today.