Trip report - Northern Italy, October 2017 - Part I

We planned a full month in Italy. The house was sold and our new digs weren’t ready, so … Flew into Milan Malpensa from JFK on Emirates and caught the Alibus minibus (21 Euros each) to Stresa. Less than an hour later, we were aboard a Lake Maggiore water taxi to three-nights on Isola Pescatori at the Belvedere Hotel.
The room was gorgeous with a small, flowered balcony overlooking the lake. One of the Stresa highlights was the ferry day trip (30 Euros each) to Locarno, Switzerland. We sat on the top deck with a chilled bottle of wine on a warm, blue-sky day and thoroughly enjoyed the ride. We poked around Locarno for a little shopping and lunch and took the train back to Stresa through the Alp foothills. Great views all the way.
Unfortunately, we missed the last ferry back to Isola Pescatori and the deskman at a Stresa hotel called the Belvedere on our behalf to see what could be done. There was a water taxi leaving the Lido and bringing dinner guests over at 8 p.m. sharp. The Lido? Where was the Lido? We met a local man and frantically asked for the Lido. He spoke English and escorted us in the dark all the way to the Lido – at the opposite end of town from the ferry. He was 85 years old and kept up a better pace than us!
Next stop was Parma. Arrived by train (all train tickets had been booked online 90 or so days in advance through Trenitalia) and Hotel Button was home base for the next five nights. Great location, but the bar noise on Friday and Saturday into the wee hours was loud. Earplugs next time. To get oriented, we booked a Parma walking tour (20 Euros each) at the tourist office. Meh.
Parma highlights: Sunday lunch at Corale Verdi (vegans need not eye the boiled meat cart!), outdoor concerts (opera and wind ensembles), tours of a prosciutto ham and Parmigiana-Reggiano cheese plants (via TastyBus – 55 Euros each), introduction to sbrislona (great crumbly almond cake), the three-day wine festival (20 Euros each for 10 tastings), wine sampling at Oneoteca Fandango, and daytripping to Modena via rail. We waited nearly an hour for a table at Degusteria on Borgo Palmia, but it was worth every minute.
Verona for seven nights was next on the itinerary. We saw enough to make the 24-hour Verona museum pass worthwhile. Daytripped to Bolzano/Bozen where a highlight was lunch at Vogele (yes to the horseradish soup) and then taking the cable car (10 Euros each) up the mountain for a look-see, drinks and return trip back. We had booked a HomeAway apartment for this leg. It was great space to stretch out in, but the street noise and vehicle fumes beneath our second-floor windows were a little much.

Bergamo was our base for the next nine nights, staying at another HomeAway apartment (with washer and clothes-drying rack) down a bit from Alta Citta where we could easily catch a bus to the old town or walk up in 15 minutes of so. Lunched a couple of times at the Cooperativa Citta Alta, a stone’s throw from Piazza Vecchia where the food came in good-sized portions and was very reasonably priced. One of our favorite restaurants during the month was in Bergamo – Benigni Ambulatorio Gastronomico on Via Tomaso, steps from the two art museums and run by two brothers. One does the cooking and one runs the front of the house. Also on the street is a very nice wine bar, La Botegga Del Gusto, where we spent an evening sampling regional wines and munching on a hefty plate of meats and cheeses.