A tourist exiting a train in Bergamo.

How to Get to Bergamo

Getting to Bergamo is refreshingly simple, and it is one of the reasons the city makes such a good base for northern Italy. You can fly almost to its doorstep, or reach it by train from Milan in under an hour. Here is how it all works, and how to get up into the walled upper town once you arrive. For the wider picture, see my complete guide to Bergamo.

By air: Milan Bergamo (Orio al Serio, BGY)

Bergamo has its own airport, Milan Bergamo (Orio al Serio, code BGY), a major low-cost hub barely five kilometres from the city. It is the easiest arrival of all. The ATB airport bus, Line 1, runs frequently, roughly every twenty minutes from around 5:30 in the morning until past midnight, and costs about 2.60 euros; it reaches Bergamo’s railway station in fifteen to twenty minutes and carries on toward the funicular for the upper town a little after that. Taxis are on hand too for a quick, fuss-free ride.

Do note that the airport’s name is a friendly fiction: it serves Milan, yes, but it is Bergamo’s own, and it would be a shame to fly in and rush straight past the city to Milan when the loveliest thing for miles is right here on the hill.

By train

Bergamo sits on the regional rail network with frequent connections. From Milan, both Milano Centrale and Milano Porta Garibaldi, the Trenord journey takes around fifty minutes and costs in the region of five to six euros each way, which makes a day trip perfectly easy, though I would urge you to stay the night instead. Brescia, Bergamo’s sister city to the east, is a similar short hop. The train station is in the lower town on Piazzale Marconi, a short bus ride, or a pleasant walk of about twenty minutes up the main avenue, from the funicular that climbs to the Città Alta.

By airport coach to Milan, and back

Because so many people fly into BGY bound for Milan, there are also direct coach services between the airport and Milan’s central stations, run by several operators, taking roughly an hour and costing around eight to ten euros. They are useful if Milan is your real destination, but if it is Bergamo you have come for, ignore them and take the local ATB bus into the city instead.

By car

You can drive, but you rarely need to, and the walled upper town is emphatically not built for cars: much of the Città Alta is a restricted traffic zone (ZTL) where driving without a permit earns a fine, and parking up top is scarce. You are far better leaving the car in the lower town, in one of the car parks near the station or at the foot of the funicular, and riding up. If you are touring the lakes and quieter valleys under your own steam, a car makes real sense for those days; for the city itself, park it and forget it.

Getting up to the Città Alta

However you arrive, the last step is the lovely one. From the lower town, the funicular climbs to the upper town in a couple of minutes and runs on the same inexpensive urban ticket as the buses, about 1.60 euros and valid for seventy-five minutes, so a single fare covers your bus-plus-funicular in one go. If you plan to hop about, a 24-hour pass is around 5.50 euros. City buses also wind up to the old town for those who would rather stay on wheels, and a second, separate funicular carries you higher still to San Vigilio, covered by the same ticket. Buy a standard ATB ticket at a machine, tobacconist or on the app, validate it, and it will take you almost everywhere you want to go.

Getting to Bergamo from elsewhere in Italy

Bergamo is well woven into the northern rail network. Brescia is under an hour to the east; the Lecco arm of Lake Como is roughly forty minutes to an hour to the north; Verona is around an hour and a half, and Venice two and a half to three hours, usually with a simple change at Milan or Brescia. Coming from the west or the lakes of Maggiore and Como’s Como-town side, you will generally route through Milan and hop on the fast regional train out to Bergamo from there. None of these journeys is complicated, and most run frequently through the day.

Arriving late, and a note on luggage

The airport bus runs until past midnight, and taxis fill any gap, so a late arrival is no drama. But if you are landing very late and sleeping in the upper town, bear in mind the cobbles and the possibility that reception has gone home; it can be gentler to spend the first night in the lower town, near the station, and move up the hill in daylight. Pack light if you can, or at least in a case with good wheels, because the Città Alta’s charm and its cobbles are one and the same thing.

Tickets: where to buy and how to validate

Buy your urban tickets at the machines in the stations, at tobacconists (look for the blue and white “T” sign), or through the ATB app. A single ticket covers bus and funicular for seventy-five minutes; validate it in the little machine as you board your first ride, because inspectors do check and an unvalidated ticket counts as no ticket at all. If you expect to ride more than three or four times in a day, the 24-hour pass quickly pays for itself.

A rough sense of cost

City transport is cheap: a single urban ticket covering the bus and funicular is little more than a euro and a half, the airport bus about 2.60, and a train from Milan five to six euros each way. None of it will trouble the budget, which is one more reason Bergamo is such an easy pleasure to reach.

Day trip or stay the night?

You can absolutely do Bergamo as a day trip from Milan, fifty minutes each way by train, and thousands of people do exactly that. But the city changes the moment the last funicular of day-trippers heads down the hill: the upper town quietens, the light softens, and the streets take on the intimacy that is the whole point of the place. If your schedule allows even one night, give it one; you will be glad you did.

Accessibility and the cobbles

A word for anyone with limited mobility or a pushchair. The funiculars do the hard work of the hill, and buses reach the upper town too, but the Città Alta itself is cobbled, stepped and steep in places, and it can be slow going. The lower town is far flatter and easier, and much of the upper town’s beauty can still be enjoyed at the pace that suits you, starting from Piazza Vecchia and choosing the gentler lanes. Plan a little extra time, and there is no reason to miss it.

Once you are here

Plan the visit itself with the perfect Bergamo itinerary, choose your base in where to stay in Bergamo, and pick the right season in the best time to visit Bergamo.