Bergamo Alta (Città Alta)

Bergamo Alta, the Città Alta, is the medieval upper town of Bergamo in eastern Lombardy, crowning a hill above the modern lower city and encircled by some six kilometres of 16th-century Venetian defensive walls inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors usually ride the historic funicular up from Bergamo Bassa and emerge into a compact warren of cobbled lanes that open onto the Piazza Vecchia, ringed by the Palazzo della Ragione, the Contarini fountain and the slender Campanone bell tower, which can be climbed for rooftop views. A few steps away the Piazza del Duomo packs in the cathedral, the ornate Renaissance Cappella Colleoni with its inlaid marble facade, the octagonal Baptistery and the Romanesque Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. Beyond the monuments, the pleasure of the upper town lies in walking the ramparts, looking out over the Lombard plain and the Alpine foothills, and pausing in pastry shops for the local polenta-and-bird sweet, the polenta e osei. A relaxed visit takes three to four hours; the walls walk alone makes a fine circuit at sunset. Mornings and sunset are the quietest and most photogenic times, while midday and summer weekends fill the main squares with day-trippers, many arriving via nearby Orio al Serio airport. The best vantage points are the Campanone tower, the San Vigilio hill reached by a second funicular, and the bastions of the western walls at dusk. The town itself is free to wander; individual towers, museums and the Accademia Carrara picture gallery in the lower city charge modest entry. With its intact Venetian walls and stacked piazzas, Bergamo Alta is among the best-preserved hill towns in northern Italy.