• Experience stunning Bergamo - one of northern Italy’s loveliest cities

• Opera performances Le Convenienze & Inconvenzienze Teatrali & L’Esule di Roma at Teatro Donizetti

• The craft of violin making explored in delightful Cremona

• Visits to private palaces & Bergamo’s excellent picture gallery

• Private recital, visit & lunch at a historic villa to the north of Milan

• Comfortable 4* hotel close to the Teatro Donizetti in Lower Bergamo

Each November, Bergamo in Lombardy hosts a festival of music celebrating Gaetano Donizetti (1797 – 1848), a Bergamo native and one of Italy’s most engaging and prolific composers. A leading exponent of the Bel Canto tradition, beauty and evenness of tone, together with highly florid passages are his hallmarks, as we shall discover during two opera performances which will be Le Convenienze & Inconvenzienze Teatrali and L’Esule di Romaat the restored Teatro Donizetti near our hotel.

Bergamo is a most handsome, small city. Hovering at the eastern edge of Lombardy, its history has placed this visually impressive place at the political and cultural edge of events, situated as it is between Milan and Venice to west and east, and the Po Plain and the Alps to the south and north. There is much to see, its urban wealth made possible by trade routes long-established by the Romans, criss-crossing the north of the Italian peninsula. In post-Roman times, it became one of the most important Longobard duchies - a part of the wider Lombard kingdom of Italy. The nearby Duchy of Milan took the city for its own in the fourteenth century and a century later Bergamo found itself at the Western frontier of the Republic of Venice.

These periods of changing political allegiances, alternating between civic independence and dominance by neighbouring powers, are reflected in an ensemble of late medieval and fine renaissance churches, chapels and secular buildings distributed about the Upper and Lower parts of Bergamo. Indeed, under Venetian control, trade, civic and artistic life flourished as never before - the fine Venetian walls and gates garlanding the upper town are also but one of the more obvious indications of this aspect of Bergamo’s cultural heritage. One of the great smaller art galleries in Italy, the Accademia Carrara, is rich in Venetian and Lombard paintings and sculptures. The highly regarded religious works of the Venetian painter Lorenzo Lotto can be seen throughout Bergamo’s churches. His near contemporary, the local painter Giovanni Battista Moroni, is one of Italy’s greatest sixteenth century portraitists and we shall see his works in one of Bergamo’s impressive palaces, many of which are still owned by Bergamo’s mercantile and noble families.

We spend a day in Cremona, one of the most delightful cities in northern Italy, rich with musical tradition. Claudio Monteverdi was born there in 1567 and found fame as the great innovator in contemporary Italian music, his name forever associated with the emergence of opera and the creator of some of the finest madrigals and sacred music ever composed. Today, Cremona is probably best remembered as the home of the world’s finest violin maker, Antonio Stradivarius. The city was renowned for its tradition of making luxury goods but above all, superb stringed instruments. Families of craftsmen such as the Amati, the Guarneri and the Stradivari produced violins, violas and cellos still regarded as the finest of their kind. Our finale has a fitting musical theme as we take our seats for a private recital, visit and lunch in a private villa to the west of Bergamo, in the hills to the north of Milan.

We shall stay in the very well-located 4* Excelsior San Marco in Lower Bergamo, within a ten-minute walk of Teatro Donizetti, the principal shopping district and the funicular to the upper part of Bergamo’s historic centre. 

Day 1: Wednesday 18 November – We fly from Heathrow Terminal 5 to Milan Linate on BA572 arriving at 3:45 pm in the afternoon. We transfer to Bergamo and check in at 4* Excelsior San Marco for four nights. Later in the evening we shall have our first group dinner in a local restaurant – water, wine and coffee are included with all group meals.

Day 2: Thursday 19 November – We travel to Cremona where, on arrival, we pause for coffee. Piazza del Comune presents a rich ensemble of medieval and later architecture, dominated by the Torrazzo, one of the highest medieval towers in Europe. We visit the adjacent Duomo, a wonderful Romanesque church with a very ornate west front, behind which lies a frescoed interior. The newly restored Baptistery is one of Lombardy’s finest. After our group lunch, we visit the Museo del Violino, an interactive and well-presented investigation of the history of Cremonese lute and violin making. It houses a magnificent selection of historic instruments, including many crafted by Stradivarius, one of which will be played for us via a short private recital. We return to Bergamo after which the evening will be free.

Day 3: Friday 20 November – Bergamo’s old historic medieval centre is raised upon a hill (Bergamo Alta) joined to its lower, newer counterpart (Bergamo Bassa), via a panoramic funicular which we shall use today. Our morning in Bergamo Alta begins with a guided visit to the splendid Palazzo Moroni which has some lively early seventeenth century fresco cycles and a most enchanting walled garden. The highlight is a group of fine portraits by the sixteenth century Lombard painter from Bergamo, Giovanni Battista Moroni. After a coffee break, we continue to view the handsome buildings in and around Piazza Vecchia. We begin at the Duomo then visit the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, a fine Romanesque church whose many highlights include intarsia panels set into the choir screen, designed by Lorenzo Lotto. The adjoining Cappella Colleoni, named after the fifteenth century condottiero, Bartolomeo Colleoni, is a renaissance addition to this marvellous architectural ensemble. Following a group lunch, the remainder of the afternoon and early evening will be free for private explorations. Our first opera Le Convenienze & Inconvenzienze Teatrali at the nearby Teatro Donizetti begins at 8.00 pm after which we walk the short distance to our hotel.  

Day 4: Saturday 21 November – Our half-day of visits explore Bergamo Bassa and we begin with a private visit to Palazzo Agliata where a member of the owning family will guide us through this fine eighteenth house, rich in gentle baroque and rococo decoration and with a charming, terraced garden. Following coffee, we visit to the newly arranged picture collection at the Accademia Carrara, rich in Venetian and Lombard pictures, where we shall see some real gems in a thoughtful and engaging display. We shall then have a group lunch in one of Bergamo’s best restaurants. The remainder of the afternoon and early evening will be free. We return to Teatro Donizetti for our second opera at 8.00 pm – L’Esule di Roma.

Day 5: Sunday 22 November –We depart Bergamo and drive to the north of Milan to the Lombard village of Briosco, where we visit privately Villa Medici-Giulini. Built in 1643, the estate has had many owners and Fernanda Giulini and her family restored the villa in the twentieth century.  It is where Signora Giulini displays some of her extraordinary collection of historic keyboard instruments: harpsichords, organs and pianos. Surrounded by formal Italian gardens and an English-style park, the villa’s many reception rooms (including an impressive saloon painted by Zuccarelli) houses the historic pianos, some of which will be played during this morning’s recital.  After our final, festive group lunch, we continue to Milan Linate Airport for the BA585 6.55 pm return flight to London Heathrow Terminal 5 which is scheduled to arrive at 8.00 pm.

Price £2495 per person (2 sharing a room) Without Flights £2345pp Deposit £495pp Single Supplement £245 (Double for Sole Use) 

Hotel

4 nights inc breakfast at 4* Hotel Excelsior San Marco, Bergamo, Standard Room

Flights British Airways

Outward:         BA572 Depart London Heathrow (Terminal 5) 1240 arrive Milan Linate 1545

Return:            BA575 Milan Linate 1855 arrive London Heathrow (Terminal 5) 2000

Price includes 1 dinner and 4 lunches with wine, water & coffee, 2 opera tickets (stall seats) all local transfers, entry fees & gratuities, city tax, services of our local guide on Day 3 and James Hill

Not included Travel to/from Heathrow, 3 dinners

Please note our tours generally involve a significant amount of standing and walking, sometimes across uneven ground, or over cobbled streets, or up and down steps and inclines. We do not have an upper age limit for participants, but we require you to have a level of fitness which does not affect other participants' enjoyment of the tour. Please also note that many palaces, gardens, villas, museums and galleries have limited seating and perhaps do not have lifts. You should be able to walk at a reasonable pace and/or stand for at least twenty minutes without aid or requiring a rest. If you are in any doubt, please do contact us for advice on the tour’s suitability for you.