We continued heading
west on minor roads through villages with lots of 30km limits, humps
and
frequent speed cameras, then took the Brescia tangential (bypass) and a
short drive on the main road to Lake Iseo and the lakeside
site of Camping Cavelo which was nearly full with mostly Dutch
caravanners
and a few British motorhomers. It was about two kilometres from the
centre of Iseo town so we walked there the next morning to look at the
lakeside and do some food
shopping.
old steamer on Lake Iseo
The warm weather now broke so it was overcast when we set
off the next morning to Bergamo, a small city in the foothills of the
Alps. We found some free onstreet parking as it was a Sunday, some
distance away from the main tourist area where there were several people
loitering around, and headed up the steep path and steps to the gateway
into the old city centre. It was quite busy with tourists and
churchgoers as we explored the maze of old streets with the Duomo
surrounded by tall buildings so rather closed-in compared to other
Italian cities, not that we have visited many! Just as we set off back
to the van the heavens opened and we got soaked. Taking the
route to Milan we joined the autostrada just as another torrential downpour
started. Cars were pulling over to shelter under the bridges but one
pulled out immediately in front of us. As we were only crawling
along we luckily managed to swerve into the empty outer lane
and decided to get off the motorway onto flooded roads and parked up for twenty
minutes until the rain eased. Once we had recovered we continued on
slow main roads passing through Gorganzola but with no cheese aromas,
and joined the very busy Milan ring road with several stops to pay small tolls.
We eventually reached new roads, not on the satnav, to Rho where we had booked a
pitch at a temporary sosta operating for the Milan Expo. Although
€25 a night they ran a shuttle minibus to the exhibition site about
five kilometres away.
Bergamo gateway
Fortunately the weather was again sunny the next day as we visited
the large Expo site visiting the pavilions of many countries. There was meant to be a theme of food
sustainability but that wasn't always obvious from the displays. Several
had long queues, in particular Brazil with its large
rope netting walkway although it wasn't so busy at the end of the day.
We enjoyed the well presented and informative Ecuador and Czech
exhibits but other countries made less of an impact and we thought the
British pavilion was rather low key with its bee theme. There was some
free entertainment with bands playing occasionally and a twice daily
parade of people dressed as fruit to entertain the
children, but virtually no freebies or handouts. The Tree of
Life fountain only operated for short periods but was
apparently spectacular when floodlit at night. Food was mostly
expensive from snack bars or restaurants but we found
a Co-op mini-market on the site to buy our picnic.
Main concourse from Czech pavilion
Brazil - popular climbing net
Great Britain (bees theme?)
Returning to get the shuttle bus after a weary but interesting day we
got confused by the signage, ending up in the depths of the railway
station, and just made it back to the pickup point as
another terrific thunderstorm started.
Gardone Riviera -
promenade Il Vittoriale villa
Lake Garda near Padenghe
Bergamo piazza
Bergamo Duomo
Milan Expo 2015 pavilions - Ecuador
China
Turkey
Russia
Tree of Life - more impressive at night
The twice daily fruit themed parade