Got up and went to the cheerful garden for breakfast.

It was a total surprise that we got breakfast here at all because we are in an apartment so, even though it was just coffee, yogurt and rolls, it was welcome. We met 2 Norwegian couples who have traveled together often, like we have. It was great talking with them.
Bergamo has two parts—the old city is higher and called the citta alta ;the more modern city is the citta bassa. Our hotel is in the citta alta. It was a short walk to the botanical gardens where we enjoyed seeing all the local plants and trees. Then we took the finiculare car up to the top and walked around ending with a little explore of the castle and Amy, Ken and I climbed to the top of the tower.

An amazingly lit Japanese maple we walked past:

and a view of the citta alta form above:

We took the finiculare back down and after a short walk into the citta alta chose a large restaurant call Circolino to stop for some nice salads for lunch. We came back to the hotel for a while and then Amy and I struck out on our own for her to find gifts to bring back. We went into several stores on the main street and finally she found what she needed and I got a bag of the polenta taragna I was wanting.
The restaurant we wanted to go to for dinner was closed so we went, instead, to Da Ornella. It was very simple (not a problem) but they did have casoncelli which is the local Bergamasco stuffed pasta and it was wonderful in a butter and sage sauce. We also shared “stinco di miale” a roasted pork shank with polenta. Amy and Kev had a roasted chicken with garlic and parsley. All the meats came with polenta (normale not taragna) and were good home style cooking. Bill was 72 euro.
We all had a local Cabernet which was nice and cool and went down very easily.