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

• Opera performances to include Il Furioso all'Isola di Santo Domingo & Caterina Cornaro at Teatro Donizetti & Il Campanello/Des Hommes et Une Femme at Teatro Sociale

• Visits to two 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 three opera performances which will be Il Furioso all’Isola di Santo Domingo and Caterina Cornaro at the recently restored Teatro Donizettinear our hotel, and Il Campanello/Des Hommes et Une Femme at the Teatro Sociale in Bergamo Alta.  

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 until the fall of the Serenissima in 1797.

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 alsobut 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 a number of impressive palaces, two of which we shall visit privately, many still owned by Bergamo’s mercantile and noble families. 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, 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: Thursday 20 November – We fly from Heathrow Terminal 5 to Milan Linate on BA572 arriving at 3:40 pm in the afternoon. We transfer to Bergamo and our hotel, the 4* Excelsior San Marco and check-in for four nights. Later in the evening we shall have our first group dinner in a nearby restaurant – water, wine and coffee are included with all group meals.

Day 2: Friday 21 November – The city’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 during some of our visits. Our day begins with the handsome buildings in and around Piazza Vecchia. The Basilica ofSanta Maria Maggiore is a very 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.After coffee and a visit to the Duomo,we end our morning with the first of two private visits to some of Bergamo’s noble and mercantile palaces. Palazzo Terzi was extended from its original sixteenth century nucleus into one of the city’s finest eighteenth-century palaces. Its gilded and frescoed reception rooms give an indication of the ambition of Bergamo’s great and good. Following a group lunch, we end our activities with a 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. We return to our hotel where the early evening will be free. Our first opera Il Furioso all'Isola di San Domingo at the nearby Teatro Donizetti begins at 8.00 pm after which we walk the short distance to our hotel.  

Day 3: Saturday 22 November – For our half-day of visits, we explore Bergamo Bassa and 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 continue to the Church of Santo Spirito which contains some very fine sixteenth century paintings. The Church of SS Bartolomeo e Stefano is a baroque church containing one of Lorenzo Lotto’s most important altarpieces. Following a group lunch, the remainder of the afternoon and early evening will be free. We return to Teatro Donizetti for our second opera at 8.00 pm - Caterina Cornaro.

Day 4: Sunday 23 November – Following two opera evenings, we have a leisurely breakfast before our mid-morning 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. Lunch today is not included. For our third and final opera, we visit the Teatro Sociale in Bergamo Alta to see Il Campanello/Des Hommes et Une Femme at 3.30pm. Later in the evening our final group dinner is in one of the city’s best restaurants.

Day 5: Monday 24 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 lunch there will be a little time to stroll around the estate gardens, weather-permitting. We continue to Milan Linate Airport for the BA575 6:55 pm return flight to London Heathrow Terminal 5 which is scheduled to arrive at 7:55 pm.

Price £2375 Without Flights £2225 Deposit £475 per person Single Supplement £235 (Double for Sole Use) 

Hotels

Hotel 4 nights with breakfast at the 4* Hotel Excelsior San Marco, Bergamo, Standard Rooms

Flights British Airways

Outward:         BA572 Depart London Heathrow (Terminal 5) 1240 arrive Milan Linate 1540

Return:            BA575 Milan Linate 1855 arrive London Heathrow (Terminal 5) 1955

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

Not included Travel to/from Heathrow, 2 dinners & 1 lunch