Bergamo

Bergamo (Lombard: BÞrghem, German: Wõlsch-Bergen) is a city in the Italian region of Lombardy, 40 kilometers east of Milan. It is the capital of the province of Bergamo.

Bergamo, a city of 115,000 inhabitants, can be divided into a high and low part. The high part is the old medieval city, which was walled during the Venetian rule in the 16th century. At the center lies the Piazza Vecchia, which includes the Palazzo della Raggione, the cathedral, and the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which contains the tomb of the musician Gaetano Donizetti.

The lower part of the city, which is connected to the old center by a cable car, houses, in addition to institutions such as the town and province halls, most of the residential neighborhoods, the station, and the Accademia Carrara with works by Botticelli, Rubens, and Raphael.

Bergamo also has an airport, named Orio al Serio, which is used not only for national traffic but also by cheaper international airlines. There is a direct flight connection from Schiphol as well as from Eindhoven.

The name Bergamo is written in the local dialect as "BÞrghem" (berghem in Dutch), which finds its origin in a Lombard-Germanic dialect. The name means something like "Mountain house."

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