In the June Light of Northern Italy, the Bliss of Bergamo
'This is the first in a series of articles dedicated to summer vacations that changed writers’ understanding of travel, or of themselves.
A few years ago, I decided that the best time to go to Europe was June. It was mostly because everywhere we might visit, the local population was still at work, at school, at home, and it would be easier to sneak around, pretending not to be a tourist. When we decided to go to Bergamo, we intended to stay for a day or two, part of a mini tour of northern Italy, before visiting friends in Lake Como, but once we got there, we couldn’t leave.
It was a lesson in being unprepared, in having bought the guidebook, but not having read it, in discovering for yourself what you soon realize millions of lucky travelers have discovered before you.
Bergamo is exactly where the lush, well-watered plains of northern Italy meet the Alps. The hotel we had found online was above the Città Alta, the original walled city, overlooking a deep valley full of fruit trees, grass and flower beds that benefit from 45 inches of annual rainfall, about 30 inches more than the Carmel Valley in California, where we live.'>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/travel/bergamo-northern-italy-jane-smiley.html?