Sounds like fresha

 

Friday 8 May - happy birthday Sir David

Lovely sunny day today which saw us back on the coach headed for Brescia (which is pronounced Bresha), Lombardy's second city, comprising about 190,000 inhabitants. There's a swishy shiny glass financial district, but the old city is a beautiful mix of architctural styles reflecting its varied past - Roman remains included (it was then known as Brixia), many of which are housed in a museum which we sadly didn't have time to visit. There's also a rather splendid restoration project going on too. 

We were led on a guided walk by Alessandra, a colleague of Barbara's, and we got some fairly detailed info about the city and its origins. There's an old circular cathedral (Roman origins, with mosaics which would have been interesting to see had it been open!) right next to a "new" one with dome which was started in the 1600s but took about two centuries to complete.

It's easy to follow a walking route linking the beautiful piazzas in the city (and there's also a UNESCO corridor linking the museum to the Roman ruins which we walked through), and you're rewarded with some amazing municipal buildings, churches and some quirky oddities too. 

One of the loveliest squares is Piazza Loggia, which along with the town hall and a zodiac clock complete with life-size bronze bell ringers, commemorates a far-right terrorist bombing atrocity in 1978 which killed a dozen protesters, with a fitting memorial on the site of the device and where they fell.

We moved on to an homage to Fascist architecture in Piazza Vittorio, where Mussolini had his own red marble "pulpit" built (really rather attractive), together with a beautiful Post Office and an early skyscraper.

A couple of quirky arty things there too (don't worry, it's a rhino sculpture) and a very well-stocked Italmark supermarket full of lovely products, including Kim's favourite soap only available in Italy...

After a wander round and a bite to eat, we walked back through the old town to the bus station and were then taken to Cascina Carretto, an organic Agriturismo winery (and wedding venue) which harvests grapes by hand in August and produces Franciacorta sparkling white and rose (definitely NOT prosecco, which is made very differently) and a red - the latter was quite cheap and had rather a funky aroma. We had a tour of the vineyard and the cellar, and a very detailed explanation of how the wine is made. Obviously I can't remember all the details, but let's just say it's very painstaking in order to get the balance of acidity and sugars absolutely right. 

We had a small tasting of three of the wines - quite severely rationed (Neil - not like the Gambini brothers on Mt Etna in 2014!!), and although I really liked it, was a bit out of my price range and I wasn't about to be hauling it around northern Italy over the next 10 days. Quite a few people did buy though, as I'm the only one in the party staying on to travel further. 

We were also given a massive buffet with lots of lovely food - the meats actually come from the cows and pigs reared on the land, and we also got to see those. Like most faint-hearted meat eaters though, I would rather not have been acquainted with the poor beast providing my supper - I know, such a hypocrite.

We were back at the hotel around 7pm for more food at 8pm, this time a heap of meat which one of the waiters had spent hours barbecuing. I hadn't eaten that much at the winery but could still only manage about half of what was put in front of me (especially as I was craving vegetables), which I hope my thickening waistline was grateful for. (Shame about the half bottle of pinot nero I did manage to neck.) We also had some light entertainment in the form of singer Simone Salvi who had a wide range of backing tracks and performed requests. As he was performing right beside our table, I couldn't be too rude and kept my eye rolling to a minimum.

We settled up our rather substantial bar bill for the week and I had a relatively early night to progress my packing for the trip to Bergamo next day - the end of Kim's short break, but the beginning of my solo trip. 

A church in a cave

 Thursday 7 May 

(Postal vote has been submitted and may local election results today be the right ones but not the far right ones - let's tell those fascist racist Reform a***holes to f*** right off)

Awake too early to get up but too late to go back to sleep, so I've made a cup of tea and a start on today's entry. And the sun's out - but will it last? Ummm - just about.

Every evening before dinner, Barbara gives us a detailed (very detailed) preview of the next day's itinerary, though last night I arrived late so she was already mid-flow and I also needed to report that both hairdryers in my room are non funziona - the upshot being that I'm not entirely sure what we're doing today, but there's mention of a cave with a church inside, and talk of past miracles being related by passionate volunteer guides.

All I do know is that we're having some kind of rustic multi-course lunch and then coming back to the hotel mid-afternoon, enabling more splashing about, steaming and drying out in the sauna where the window looks out on to the valley. Yesterday evening I had a great view also of the thunderstorm, and where the thermal pool expands to the outside through a little hatch, it was slightly bizarre drifting about in what feels like a bath with an urge to sing "raindrops keep falling on my head". I am however slightly concerned about the prospect of a large lunch where I will, despite abstemious intentions, no doubt eat everything put in front of me, followed by a 3-course dinner just a few hours later. 

I'll need to do a lot of walking to combat the excess calorie intake when I'm solo travelling from Saturday onwards (booking.com is now collecting the accommodation payments - eek)  As one of the younger members (really) of the generally white-haired party here, I would be happy to engage in rather more vigorous perambulations, but instead it's gentle strolling march of the penguins stylee in order not to tax those of more advanced years and even stiffer joints. Though to be fair, it's all a bit too steep and slippery to walk far or fast with the current rainfall - on the island yesterday, for example, the narrow winding streets above the perimeter road were often cobbled at acute angles and therefore a bit treacherous in Skechers.

The trip to Corbusa Sanctuary took place over many hairpin bends - having gone down the valley, we went back up the other side. The cave is actually at ground level - more of a cavern really. It was hollowed out further into a church in the early 1900s by the local poor people (of course). The miracle legend arose from a young deaf and dumg shepherdess (see tableau below) taking shelter in said cave when it was small, and finding a small statue of the Madonna at the bottom of the natural spring within. Having put it into its rightful respectful position within the cave, she was then miraculously cured of her afflictions when she went home to her family and told them all about it. The fact that Pope Giovanni the 23rd came from the Bergamo region has increased the profile of the sanctuary, and there are statues and pics of him everywhere, and his humble bedroom (apart from a silk counterpane) is housed in the museum.

The cavern/church itself has many seats, a rather beautiful altar, confession boxes, and the natural spring ever present. The initials GR are everywhere - this means Grazia Ricevuta (Grace Received) where many people have appealed to the Virgin Mother to  save them from accidents, enable long-awaited pregnancies (see pic below) and recovery from serious illnesses or otherwise-fatal accidents where all seemed lost. There are many amateur artworks in the museum - including football-related items - appealing to or thanking the Madonna for her aid, with a vision of her shining her light from the corner of the frame on to the disaster or sick persons below. Most of them are really bad. 

 

I would like to have had more time to do one of the walking trails around the sanctuary - the views of the valley were spectacular, mad even better by a sunny day in contrast to the past three - but we didn't really have enough information to do that within the time frame, and we'd been allowed rather too much time there before moving on for a group lunch a few km en route back to Rota d'Imagna at a rustic place called Antica Locanda Roncaglia. 

The food was good, the service slow and the small room with four long tables extremely noisy. The first course was prosciutto lard with honey - I avoided - followed by a delicious, very al dente leek and cheese risotto, a tasty spaghetti carbonara, polenta (not my fave), and stewed pork and roasted potatoes - I just had a taster of the latter, and managed half of the tiramisu before giving the rest away. The wine was weak but plentiful, and Kim and I managed to stay awake on the coach on the short trip back to the hotel, where we paid another visit to the lovely spa and its facilities before dinner and more wine - which, miraculously, most of us still had belly space for despite the multiple courses less than 5 hours previously....

Wet wet wet

 Wednesday 6 May

A slightly earlier start - back on the coach to Lake Iseo via the Monte Isola, a small mountainous island in the middle of the lake where there are a few shops and restaurants, a stunning frescoed church and no cars - just mopeds, a bus and those tiny little trucks which combine a scooter with a tail bed. Rain and mist, rain and mist - at times it hammered down - yes, Italy can be wet and miserable too! A coffee and croissant was made more enjoyable by a flock(?) of 11 ducklings hanging around with mum outside a little cafe risking life and limb from passing mopeds.

We then headed off to further round the lake on a very noisy boat. Our tour manager, Barbara, is very sweet and enthusiastic, but her radio/headphones system really doesn't work very well and her singsongy voice really isn't very soothing on the ear...

Iseo is very sweet with beautiful painted and stencilled facades and colonnades. We had a delicious lunch at the Leon d'Or ristorante and pizzeria, but unfortunately it being lunchtime, most of the nice shops were shut! Flowers and jasmine hedges were lovely features, and for a short time, the sun came out - woohoo!

Lots of snoozing and snoring on the way back to the hotel, where it began to thunder and lightning. We went down to the spa to enjoy thermal spa swim, jacuzzi, sauna, water beds, steam room and aromatherapy shower. Another lovely dinner with great wine and digestivo before bedtime and blogging.

Andiamo Lombardy

 Monday 4 May 2026 (May the 4th be with you...)

A long-awaited organised 6-day trip to northern Italy is happening today, and so I wake up almost 2 hours before my alarm is set and after flailing about for a while I decide to get up and get organised. Kim and I are heading for Heathrow and it soon emerges that on a bank holiday Monday, the buses to the nearest Windrush line station are going to let me down, so I plump for an Uber with a driver who informs me that the back hatch is open so I can pay him a tenner to go 2 miles and handle my own baggage...

The airport wait (thank god for the relaxation of liquids regs) is relatively short and the flight gets into Milan Linate before time. The passport control man takes my photo and my fingerprints efficiently, but for some reason, Kim gets away with taking either which may not bode well for the outbound trip. We board a bus with 40 other people for our hotel in the hamlet of Rota d'Imagna, high up the Imagna valley not far from Bergamo, accompanied by our very enthusiastic and friendly tour manager, Barbara, a Bergamo native. Our hotel, the Miramonti Spa, accessed expertly by driver Davide via a lengthy set of hairy hairpin bends way way up above the valley, is family-run, friendly, clean and comfortable and promises a delightful stay.

After a little welcome bone-dry Prosecco and snacks, and getting to know a couple of our fellow travellers, we enjoy a delicious 3-course dinner served by a team for whom nothing is too much trouble  (though my cauliflower starter promises three textures which turn out to be - um - steamed cauliflower),  accompanied by an incredibly reasonable wine list - we plump for a pink. 

Kim and I chat afterwards for a while to a couple of like-minded women of our age with whom we queued at the airport, and we enjoy a delicious (even for me) Grappa variant called Elisir di Corte with herb and honey flavourings. I sleep well in my quiet room with its super kingsize bed, and despite waking up super-early again I get back to sleep, have a troubling dream about being late for breakfast and the next day's trip, and am then rudely awakened by the annoying ringtone on my phone alarm. 

Tuesday 5 May

After a pleasant continental breakfast) my eyes as per bigger than my belly), we got back on Davide's coach in the steady rain and mist headed back down the hairpins of this incredibly verdant valley bound for San Pellegrino (yes, that of sparkling water and soft drink fame). It's only 7km as the crow flies, but the hairpins added on the time to arrive after a little shy of an hour in the pretty though slightly faded town, characterised by Art Nouveau facades hinting at past glories. The S Pellegrino plant long worked in the centre of town, even with bottles being filled by hand to satisfy demand from the USA back in the 1930s, but as demand and markets grew it automated and moved to the outskirts of town, employing about 400 people.

Sights included a beautiful casino/spa (not allowed in), an 800m 40% incline funicular railway (not working on weekdays - it just goes up a mountain and back again, no real reason to ascend so it's just for the tourists!) and a church with a breathtaking interior entirely made up of mosaics and numerous plaques detailing the names of all the fallen during WW1. And the teenagers attending the local high school leaned out of the window to wave (and I think cheer?) at our shuffling group as we filed past.

Shopping opportunities weren't plentiful, though sufficient to buy a notebook for blogging purposes and retro-style fridge magnet - a lovely artisan food shop selling all kinds of quality (therefore pricey) local delicacies also served us well for lunch, where we enjoyed a bitter orangey spritz and panini. We wandered back to the pick-up point and enjoyed 2 euro copi di gelati on the way (Bounty flavour for me, if you're asking), then snoozed on the bus back to the hotel, where I discovered I could sign into my account and catch up on some Apple TV.

We then attended a short course in the hotel kitchen learning how to prepare the ravioli which was to form one of the dinner courses that evening. Again the staff were helpful and charming, and despite my trepidation based on disastrous efforts at shaping sourdough pizza last year, I didn't make a bad job of mine and they even compared quite favourably to the wonkiness of others.

Then - a treat! a short massage of my back and legs in the hotel spa, followed by the steam room and sauna, a thermal swimming pool and whirlpool bath/jacuzzi. Utter bliss, and I hope to at least repeat a dip and a sweat at some point in the next few days. Another lovely dinner with braesola, ravioli and a chocolate fondant followed, accompanied of course by inexpensive, decent Gavi, and an earlier night to start writing this.