Wearing a crimson and sunshine-yellow flower crown, the young man is surrounded by his family, before there is the pop of the vino frizzante and the royal blue cups are filled for a merry toast to celebrate his graduation. The fading afternoon light dances on this scene taking place near the small central Fontana Contarini in Piazza Vecchia, in Cit...

Mayors across Italy are fearing a deluge of legal complaints after the country’s top court ruled that noisy nightlife could be harmful to people’s health. In the first ruling of its kind in Italy, the supreme court of cassation ordered Brescia city council to pay €50,000 in compensation to a couple for failing to safeguard them against noise, repor...

From the beaches of Sicily to the medieval wonders of Florence, you’d need a lifetime to see everything that Italy has to offer. And while you may have visited Milan, the capital city of the northern Lombardy region, there’s a good chance that two of its close neighbours, Bergamo and Brescia, have slipped under your travel radar. If so, 2023 is the...

Italy's joint Capitals of Culture for 2023 are Bergamo and Brescia, earning this honor for their robust cultural offerings. Yet travelers who want to put a more outdoorsy spin on their visit to these marvelous cities can enjoy a brand-new hiking trail that connects the two. Along the way, trekkers will pass by two Unesco World Heritage sites, 34 co...

Unusually, Italy has two capitals of culture in 2023: Bergamo and Brescia, sharing the spotlight after their devastating 2020, when the pair were Italy’s early pandemic hotspots. Bergamo is better known — its beautiful Città Alta, or upper town, cantilevered above the Po Valley, has been a tourist fixture for the past couple of decades. That makes...

Bergamo and Brescia have unveiled a packed programme of dozens of events scheduled for spring this year that make it the must-visit destination of 2023. First, the exhibitions: unpublished, avant-garde, retrospective.  At the Accademia Carrara (Bergamo) and the Santa Giulia Museum (Brescia), respectively, the works will be on display of two major a...

The northern Italian cities of Bergamo and Brescia take up their joint status as Italy's Capital of Culture 2023 with a year-long programme of cultural events kicking off on Friday 20 January. The celebrations begin at 17.00 with a simultaneous inauguration ceremony at Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo, attended by Italian culture minister Gennaro Sangiu...

The Italian Capital of Culture 2023 will be an opportunity for the two major northern Italian cities at the centre of the project, Bergamo and Brescia, to present to the whole world a territory of surprising beauty, just waiting to be discovered.  Squares, streets, museums and theatres will become the backdrop for events and spectacular shows: majo...

Italy can’t help herself. She looks beautiful, as always, on screen. And she can’t pass up a chance to be the setting of a hit TV show. Of course, that leads to a boom in tourism. This leads to more people falling in love with Italy’s gorgeous settings. Yada yada yada…it’s a vicious cycle. Now that the worst of the pandemic seems to be behind us —...

While Italy is no doubt the place to be right now—with travelers flocking back to Venice, Rome, and Sicily after the height of the pandemic—chances are you haven’t been to Bergamo and Brescia before. The two cities in Lombardy are often overlooked in the midst of Italy’s countless unmissable destinations, despite being less than an hour away from M...