Four Days on the Lakes From Bergamo: The Airport Town Worth Staying In

Why Bergamo beats Milan as a base

Most people who land at Milan Bergamo walk straight through arrivals and onto a coach to Milano Centrale, 50 kilometres away. It is a strange habit, because the airport sits about five kilometres from one of the best-preserved walled cities in northern Italy. For a short late-summer trip, Bergamo is simply the better base: rooms cost less than in Milan, the old town is a 20-minute city bus from the terminal door, and three lakes are inside a 90-minute regional train ride.

Late August and September are the moment for this. The lakes hold their summer warmth long after the schools go back, ferry timetables stay generous into the autumn, and the flat, stagnant heat that makes Milan unbearable in August behaves very differently on the water. The crush that clogs Bellagio and Varenna in July starts thinning in the last week of August.

What follows is a four-day, three-night loop with no hire car, no motorway tolls, and no ZTL fine arriving by post six months later. You sleep in one bed for three nights and let regional trains and public ferries do all the moving.

The shape of the trip

Fares are approximate late-summer regional prices and they move around. Buy on the day and you will be close.

Day 1 — Land, ride 20 minutes, walk into a walled city

ATB bus line 1 leaves from directly outside arrivals, reaches Bergamo's railway station in roughly ten minutes and carries on up to Colle Aperto at the edge of the upper town. Buy a ticket from the machine in the terminal or in the app before you board — drivers do not sell them, and the fines are not friendly.

Drop the bag and go up. Città Alta sits on a hill inside roughly six kilometres of Venetian walls thrown up in the 1560s and inscribed by UNESCO in 2017 as part of the Venetian Works of Defence. The full circuit is a two-hour walk with almost no climbing once you are on top, and the western stretch near Porta Sant'Alessandro is where the whole city goes at sunset.

Inside the walls: Piazza Vecchia, the Palazzo della Ragione, and the Colleoni Chapel jammed up against Santa Maria Maggiore in a pile of coloured marble that looks like two buildings arguing. If your legs are finished, the funicular up from the lower town costs the same as a bus ticket, and a second, smaller funicular climbs on to San Vigilio for the view back over all of it.

Eat casoncelli alla bergamasca — folded pasta with butter, sage and pancetta. Stracciatella gelato was invented in Bergamo in 1961, and it is not the same product you get at home.

Day 2 — Lecco, Varenna and the Como ferry triangle

Direct regional trains run Bergamo to Lecco in about 40 minutes. From Lecco, the Milano–Tirano line hugs the eastern shore of Lake Como to Varenna-Esino-Perledo in another 25 minutes or so. Total: roughly €10 and just over an hour, for a lake most people reach by paying triple out of Milan.

Varenna is the good side. The station sits well above the village, and it is a ten-minute walk downhill to the water past the Passeggiata degli Innamorati, a walkway pinned to the cliff just above the surface. From the pier, ferries run the Varenna–Bellagio–Menaggio triangle all day under the state operator, Navigazione Laghi.

Do the triangle, not a single hop. Varenna to Bellagio takes about 15 minutes, Bellagio to Menaggio about the same. Each leg costs a few euros on the ordinary car ferry, which carries foot passengers and undercuts the fast hydrofoil service. Bellagio is the postcard and it knows it — walk five minutes uphill out of the crowd and prices halve. Menaggio has the better swimming, with a proper lido on the north edge of town and water still warm enough in early September that nobody stands there hesitating.

Head back with room to spare: the evening service thins out, and the climb to Varenna's station is longer than it looks.

Day 3 — Lake Iseo and the island with no cars

Lake Iseo is Como's overlooked neighbour, and almost nobody flies in for it. Take a regional train Bergamo to Brescia (about 50 minutes), then change to the Brescia–Iseo–Edolo line for Sulzano (about 45 minutes). From Sulzano pier, the ferry across to Peschiera Maraglio takes around ten minutes.

That drops you on Monte Isola, an island in the middle of the lake where private cars are banned. What is left is a shore road of roughly nine kilometres, a string of fishing villages, residents' mopeds, and a steep path up to the Santuario della Madonna della Ceriola at about 600 metres — 60 to 90 minutes on foot from the water, and it pays you back with the entire lake laid out underneath.

Hire a bike at the pier or walk the northern half. Lunch is lake fish, often dried and pressed in oil, which is better than it sounds. Swim off the rocks on the quieter western shore.

Check the return ferry and the Edolo-line train times before you settle in for a second glass. Sunday and holiday timetables on that branch are noticeably thinner than weekdays.

Day 4 — Brescia, or a slow morning, then five kilometres to the gate

If your flight leaves late afternoon or evening, stop in Brescia on the way past. It shared the Italian Capital of Culture title with Bergamo in 2023 and still gets a fraction of the visitors. The Roman Capitolium and the monastery complex of Santa Giulia — UNESCO-listed among the Longobard sites — sit minutes apart, and a single driverless metro line runs from the station to the centre.

On an early departure, stay put: the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo's lower town holds Bellini, Titian and Canaletto in a building you can see properly in ninety minutes, which is rare.

Then the best part of this itinerary. The airport is a bus ride away, not a €25 transfer and an hour of motorway. Line 1 back, 20 minutes, done — though summer security queues at Bergamo can be long, so keep a real buffer.

What it actually costs

Per person, sharing a double, flights excluded:

Roughly €230–300 for four days in an expensive corner of Italy. It works because you never book a lake-front room and never touch a taxi.

Packing for lakes and cobbles in late summer

Città Alta is steep, cobbled and polished slick by centuries of feet; the lakeside paths are gravel and stone. Bring shoes you can walk 15 kilometres in and still swim off a rock ledge afterwards. A quick-drying swimsuit means you can go in at Menaggio at 11:00 and be dry on a train by 13:00. Evenings on the water in September cool off enough for one thin windproof layer — better than a jumper, which you will carry all day for twenty minutes of use.

All of it fits in a free personal item if you are disciplined. Ryanair's free underseat bag moved to 40 x 30 x 20 cm in 2025 and easyJet's free cabin bag is larger again, so check the airline's current policy before you book — these dimensions changed recently and will change again. If you would rather not gamble at the gate, Ryanwear's compression backpack is built to that shape (fast shop).

Five things that catch people out

1. Paper regional tickets in Lombardy must be validated in the machine before you board; app tickets do not need it. Inspectors on the Como line are frequent and unmoved by tourist confusion.
2. Varenna's station is called Varenna-Esino-Perledo and sits well above the village. Ten minutes down, fifteen back up.
3. The fast hydrofoil and the ordinary ferry leave from the same piers at different prices and do not stop at the same places. Read the board, not the first departure listed.
4. Bergamo's funicular and the airport bus both stop at night. If you land after midnight, know what a taxi from BGY costs before you are standing outside the terminal at 01:00.
5. All of this runs on regional trains — cheap, frequent, no reservation needed. Do not book the high-speed network for any of it.

Four days, three lakes' worth of water, one bed, and a bus ride back to the gate. Visit Bergamo has current opening times if you want the details pinned down before you fly.