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Branson Christmas Tour - December 2 - 7 , 2024    Join Bergan Travel on our wonderful Branson Christmas Tour, it’s ALWAYS a great time! You’ll enjoy the beautifully decorated theaters and see some of the best entertainment that Branson has to offer. This fun tour includes unique dining, great hotels, fun on the motorcoach and now includes additional dining!

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A dissemination blog about travel and gastronomy

Berga: Discover this charming tourist destination

Berga is a beautiful city located in the Berguedà region, in the province of Barcelona, Spain. Surrounded by mountains and stunning landscapes, this town offers a perfect combination of history, culture and nature that makes it a very attractive tourist destination.

The old town of Berga

The old town of Berga is a place full of charm and tradition. Its cobblestone streets, picturesque squares and historic buildings will transport you back in time. Don't miss the Plaza de Sant Pere, where the homonymous church is located, a magnificent example of Romanesque architecture.

The Sanctuary of Queralt

Located on top of a hill, the Sanctuary of Queralt is one of the most emblematic places in Berga. From here, you can enjoy stunning panoramic views of the city and its surroundings. In addition, the sanctuary houses an image of the Virgin of Queralt, patroness of the region.

The Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park

If you are a nature lover, you cannot miss the Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, which is very close to Berga. This park offers a wide variety of hiking trails and outdoor activities, where you can enjoy the beauty of the mountainous landscapes and discover the native flora and fauna.

The Berguedà cuisine

The cuisine of Berga is another of the city's attractions. You cannot leave without trying typical dishes such as "trinxat", a delicious mix of cabbage, potato and bacon, or the "cargol a la llauna", grilled snails with aioli. In addition, the region is known for its artisanal sausages and cheeses, which are a real delight.

The Major Festival of Berga

If you have the opportunity to visit Berga in September, don't miss the Major Festival, one of the oldest and most traditional in Catalonia. For a week, the city is filled with music, dances, giants and fireworks, creating a festive and joyful atmosphere that will not leave you indifferent.

Berga is a tourist destination that perfectly combines history, culture and nature. Its old town, the Sanctuary of Queralt, the Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, its delicious cuisine and the Major Festival are just some of the attractions that await you in this charming Catalan city. Don't hesitate to visit it!

Gastronomic Products from Berga

Artisanal sausages.

Berga is famous for its high-quality artisanal sausages. Local producers use traditional methods to make a wide variety of sausages, such as fuet, longaniza, and butifarra. These sausages are characterized by their intense flavor and juicy texture, and are a real delight for meat lovers.

Mountain Cheeses

Excellent quality cheeses are produced in the mountains of Berga. These cheeses are made with cow, sheep, or goat milk, and are characterized by their unique flavor and creamy texture. Some of the most popular cheeses in the area are fresh goat cheese and cured sheep cheese. They are perfect to enjoy alone or accompanied by bread and wine.

Country Bread

Country bread is a typical product of the Berga region. It is a rustic and crunchy bread, with a dense and tasty crumb. This bread is made with wheat flour, water, salt, and yeast, and is baked in a wood-fired oven to obtain its characteristic flavor. It is perfect to accompany any meal or simply to enjoy it with olive oil.

Highlighted Gastronomic Places in Berga

If you're looking for places to enjoy the delicious cuisine of Berga, here we present some of the best restaurants and taverns in the area:

Els Casals Restaurant

Located in a rural setting, Els Casals Restaurant stands out for its signature cuisine based on local and seasonal products. Here you can taste dishes made with fresh and high-quality ingredients, such as grilled meats, fish of the day and delicious homemade desserts. In addition, its cozy atmosphere and personalized attention make this place a perfect option to enjoy a unique gastronomic experience.

La Cuina Tavern

If you're looking for a place with a lively atmosphere and good prices, La Cuina Tavern is an excellent choice. Here you can enjoy a wide variety of tapas and traditional Catalan dishes, such as pa amb tomàquet, escalivada and botifarra amb mongetes. In addition, its wine list has a selection of local wines that will perfectly complement your favorite dishes.

Cal Xim Restaurant

Located in the center of Berga, Cal Xim Restaurant is known for its homemade cuisine and its family atmosphere. Here you can try typical dishes of the region, such as escudella i carn d'olla, calçots with romesco sauce and homemade desserts. In addition, its price-quality ratio is excellent, making it an ideal option to enjoy a tasty meal without spending too much.

Sporting Activities in Berga, Spain

Berga, located in the province of Barcelona, is an ideal place for hiking enthusiasts. You can explore routes such as the one in the Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, where you can enjoy stunning mountain views.

Mountain Biking

The mountainous geography of Berga offers numerous routes for mountain biking. It's an excellent way to enjoy the natural landscape while exercising.

For the more adventurous, Berga offers several climbing areas. The Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park is a popular place for climbing, with routes for all skill levels.

In winter, you can enjoy skiing at the nearby ski resorts of La Molina and Masella. Both resorts offer a variety of slopes for all levels, from beginners to experts.

Paragliding

For a truly unique experience, try paragliding in Berga. With panoramic views of the region, it's an exciting activity you won't forget.

Places near Berga (Spain)

If you are in Berga and wish to explore a bit more, here we present some nearby cities and towns that offer unique tourist and gastronomic experiences:

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The Lost Soldiers of Stalag IX-B

By Roger Cohen

• Feb. 27, 2005

Methodical by nature, disciplined in what he eats, William J. Shapiro is a measured man. He keeps his affairs ordered, his body trim. His airy house, built upon retirement from a career as an obstetrician, is set beside a Florida golf course, and every now and again a ball comes through a screen. But there are few other disturbances. He and his wife, Betty, live in one of the gated communities that fan out across the flatness of Florida. The streets are quiet and secure. In the garages, electric golf carts flank sports utility vehicles with global positioning systems.

The old strive to stay active. At dawn and at dusk, when the heat is not overwhelming, pale figures may be seen trundling in their golf carts through the streets bordered by lawns of prickly Bermuda grass and hibiscus trees. The journey to this air-conditioned existence beneath the palms and beside the fairways has been long: from the tenements of New York to these plush bungalows, from chicken soup to seared salmon with arugula, from the struggle to make it to the difficulty of spending it. Here, at last, beneath a cloudless sky, all is in order.

But for the last few years, Shapiro, 79, has been having nightmares. By now, they are predictable enough. He is running, trapped, having orders barked at him. When he awakens, his wife asks him, "Are the Nazis still chasing you?" They try to laugh about it. A long time has passed, after all. But for much of that time, the memory was repressed. Dr. Shapiro did not want to think about the experiences of Private Shapiro of the 28th Infantry Division. He did not want to tell the story, because to tell it, he would have to relive it.

He was an American G.I. who was captured by the Germans and had a bad break, but that was not a big deal, or so he told himself, and so he told his children when they asked, which they stopped doing after a while because they knew the questions would be met with evasion or silence. To get on with life meant to move forward. That was what he did at war's end. It was possible to push a season in hell so far back it seemed not to have existed. It was possible to forget the name of a soldier found dead beside you one morning. But then a car door slams and it sounds like a rifle shot and one knee is already on the ground, legs moving by instinct. Insects flattened on a windshield summon images of huddled bodies, each with a bullet through the head, scattered on a road to nowhere in 1945. His skull throbs. The bitter season's harvest is perennial. It returns now and Shapiro tries, but fails, to stifle a sob.

"There were fights, arguments over food, we were screaming at one another, reduced to animals," he says, struggling for composure. "The Nazis made us slaves. You had no pride, couldn't even feel for another person. You could not be moral. The buddy system, all that broke down. . . . "

Shapiro sees the G.I.'s, 350 of them, selected by the Germans for extermination because they were Jews, or looked like Jews, or were deemed "troublemakers" or were just grabbed at random because the Nazis needed slave labor late in a lost war, and European Jews were already dead by the millions and those not yet slaughtered were too weak to work; he sees the Americans, in a place they could not comprehend, an ephemeral little hell for which they had no preparation or instruction, a Nazi concentration camp at Berga, in the east of Germany, too small to appear on most World War II maps; sees the bedraggled men, privates in their late teens or early 20's, fighting over crumbs, chewing pieces of wood or charcoal to try to stanch diarrhea, eating snow, coughing blood from throats lacerated by rock shards in the mines where they labored, slipping away in the night without a word. People who die of hunger and thirst die in silence. Either you strangle that memory or it strangles you. The shame of survival is sometimes too much to bear.

The atmosphere is suddenly more brittle in this high-ceilinged Florida room. The ceiling fans still turn. The sprinklers on the golf course still glint in the sunlight. The air-conditioners still hum. But Germany is now present, and the doctor's eyes are filled with tears.

Many Germans clamor for closure on the Holocaust, a final accounting, a resolution, as the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, in May, approaches. If they do not say, "Enough," they think it. Guilt cannot be inherited, like some family heirloom, even if consciousness of the guilt of their forebears cannot be erased. They bite their lips to stop that word -- "enough" -- coming out; they know that if they raise their chins even an inch, someone will push them down again.

But is it not reasonable to demand this Schlu 3/4strich, this closure, now that the Nazi perpetrators are already dead or will be soon? It is reasonable. But memory is not linear and reason has little purchase on it. The crimes of the Nazis have taken a tortuous course through the psyches of survivors. As Primo Levi observed, "The injury cannot be healed: it extends through time." In this moment, such injury inhabits this Florida bungalow. Mordecai Hauer is seated at the polished wooden dining table in his modest house in Queens, N.Y. On his arm is an Auschwitz tattoo -- A9092. His father, who did not come back, was A9091. His little brother, Emerich, also murdered, was A9094. His mother, Camilla, never got a number. She went straight to the gas when they arrived at Auschwitz from Hungary in the early summer of 1944, although for years Hauer refused to accept her death. He looks at me with his big frank pale eyes, as if to say: that is the way life was, once, a long way from this placid outer New York borough.

At 79, a retired teacher, Hauer is the same age as Shapiro. His obsession has been less with what the Nazis did to him than with the fate of his mother. For decades, the thought gnawed at him that he had no photograph, not a single image, of Camilla. So some years after the cold war ended, he placed an advertisement in a local paper of Goncz, Hungary -- his birthplace -- offering $200 to anyone with a photograph of her and returned to the little town for the first time in more than 50 years. He did not go into his house. What would he say? He had learned to let go. It is important to let go sometimes. Memories can be useless. But they can also devour you. He did not find a photograph of his mother. Nobody had one.

"She vanished without trace," Hauer says. And what, I ask him, of Berga, a concentration camp that did its own disappearing act after the war? What of the camp where Hauer ended up after surviving Auschwitz and encountered, to his amazement, hundreds of G.I.'s in February 1945, Americans lost in the labyrinth of the Holocaust?

"Shabby and small," he says. "It seemed makeshift. Not as permanent as Auschwitz-Birkenau, or even the green transfer blocks at Buchenwald where I had also been, but the same sort of barracks as at the other camps. There were tunnels being mined there in the hill. The drilling work ripped out our insides, but fortunately I was not in the tunnels often; I worked smashing rock."

It was a week after his arrival at Berga that Hauer saw a group of about 50 men in green uniforms being marched across the White Elster River, accompanied by guards. Half of them were assigned to work inside the tunnels, and two came to work in Tunnel 7, where Hauer was. He soon overheard them speaking in a language he had not heard before, but assumed to be English.

"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" he asked -- Do you speak German?

"No Deutsch," said one soldier. Hauer noticed the whiteness of the man's teeth.

"You England?"

"No, America."

Hauer was astonished. America! To him, it was a faraway country, the land of cowboys and Niagara Falls. It had captured his imagination as a child. Yet here in a concentration camp beside a provincial German town were Americans working as slaves for the Nazis.

During the brief lunch break, Hauer sat with the Americans. He noticed that their jackets had zippers rather than buttons; he also noted their leather boots. Some of the European Jewish prisoners had to make do with wrapping their feet in rags. When one of the American prisoners unzipped his jacket, Hauer glimpsed a small, gold Star of David on a chain.

"Du Ivri?" he asked, using a Hebrew word for a Jew.

"Ivri?"

Hauer tried again. "Du Yid?"

"Yid! Ich Yid!" the American exclaimed, pointing to the star. "Du Yid?"

Hauer indicated that he was. He gestured to the concentration camp prisoners around him to convey the idea that most of them were also Jews. At this, he noted an expression of dismay on the American's face.

The Americans initially appeared in better shape than the other prisoners. They had overcoats and field jackets; their skin was healthier. But with the passing of the days, the Americans spoke less, they dragged their feet, they looked increasingly sick and they sometimes collapsed. What fire does not destroy, it hardens. Hauer and the other European Jews at Berga, more than 1,000 of them, had been toughened by other camps. But the Americans were not yet familiar with the inexorable arithmetic of Nazi Vernichtung durch Arbeit -- destruction through work. When day after day the outlay of energy exceeds that consumed, the body wastes away. Survival comes down to calories -- calories and, in some measure, the mysteries of the mind. Berga conformed to no pattern. The Nazi concentration camps in Europe were for Europeans, not Americans, for European Jews, not American Jews. The leap of imagination required to accept the camp's existence and the systematic killing there was large. In many ways, over many years and for many reasons, that leap was never made. Berga was liberated by Americans, but its memory was held captive.

Of the 350 young G.I.'s sent there, at least 73, or 21 percent, died in the space of 10 weeks, the highest rate of attrition among American prisoners of war in Europe. Yet on Oct. 24, 1945, five months after the Nazi surrender, Maj. Gen. Edward F. Witsell wrote to a relative of one of the dead, "With respect to your desire to ascertain the location of Berga Elster, it has been learned that there was no German prisoner-of-war camp by that name."

This sort of denial set a pattern of obfuscation and concealment that was to last for decades. There were several causes. One was the bewilderment of the G.I.'s, few of them students of the Geneva Conventions. Traumatized young men, they were anxious to get on with life; they had no leadership experience and no idea to what extent Berga was an anomaly. Because nobody in the government or the military encouraged these returning privates to talk about their experiences, they brought down a screen on the horror.

Some soldiers were actively discouraged from dwelling on the past. Norman Fellman of the 70th Infantry Division, who, like Shapiro, was selected as a Jew to go to Berga, was made to sign a "Security Certificate for Ex-Prisoners of War" on April 24, 1945, almost immediately after his liberation. This stated in its first clause: "Some activities of American prisoners of war within German prison camps must remain secret not only for the duration of the war against the present enemies of the United States, but in peacetime as well." The justification given for the requirement was the need to protect the interests of American prisoners still in Japanese camps. But for Fellman, the oath meant, in effect, that his country did not want him to talk about the nightmare of Berga.

That soon seemed logical enough, in that West Germany became a pivotal ally in the cold war and political priorities shifted. "Keeping us quiet was expedient given the desire not to embarrass the German government," Fellman told me. "It was the same reason avowed Nazis who were skilled scientists were brought over here: we needed them. So somewhere in the American government, they decided to deny our existence."

It was not only the West German government that risked embarrassment if the murder of Americans at Berga became known. The American government might also have had a difficult time. Questions would have been asked -- about intelligence failures and the failure to try to rescue the men sooner. Tough scrutiny might have been directed at the process of Nazi selection of captured Jewish G.I.'s for transport to Berga and how some American military personnel turned a blind eye to the process or even abetted it. "Berga just got tucked away," recalled Joseph Littell of the 106th Infantry Division, a Christian survivor of the camp. "It was shuffled down to the lowest part of the stack, in part because it would have cast an aspersion on some part of the government."

The failure to recognize the camp did not reflect a lack of official inquiry. Berga, which was later absorbed into Soviet-dominated East Germany, was thoroughly investigated in May and June 1945 by an American war-crimes team on the scene. But the resulting documents were long classified. A War Crimes Office investigation into "the discrimination against and segregation of American prisoners of war of Jewish faith at Stalag IX-B," the camp where the P.O.W.'s were held before transport to Berga, was shelved. A War Department Report on Stalag IX-B of Nov. 1, 1945, noted that "on Feb. 8, 1945, 350 of the physically fit prisoners were sent to a work detachment in the Leipzig district" but failed to note the overlap between segregated American Jews and this "work detachment," which was in fact sent to Berga, more than 40 miles from Leipzig. The two Nazis chiefly responsible for the war crimes at Berga were identified, captured and tried in an American court in Dachau in 1946 but were free men within nine years.

Only gradually has this shameful story come to light, beginning with a Florida newspaper interview in 1983 of a Berga survivor, Bernard Melnick. Since then, the declassification of documents, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the slow easing of repressed trauma among survivors and an intensified focus on the Holocaust have made a full accounting possible at last. A detail of Hitler's war, a pawn in the cold war, Berga amounts to a small stain on America's conscience. For it was young Americans who gave their lives at the camp and on the winding roads south of it, youths drawn, by a vile Nazi selection process, into a world they could not comprehend, a horror they could not fathom, a system of annihilation that lay beyond the realm of their training, their knowledge or their brittle, and forever darkened, imaginations. Shapiro, along with the other 349 G.I.'s selected for slave labor, arrived at Berga on Feb. 13, 1945. He was 19. Like most of the rest of the group, he was captured at the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's last gamble on the western front, one that resulted in the death, injury or capture of 81,000 American soldiers before the Nazi thrust was repulsed. On the first day of the battle, Dec. 16, 1944, Shapiro was knocked unconscious by an artillery shell.

He woke up, vision blurred, at the first-aid station in Clervaux, Luxembourg. No bones were broken. Shapiro lay there watching fellow medics carrying wounded men on litters. It seemed quiet outside. But by evening, German machine-gun fire was audible. Shapiro heard somebody say they were surrounded and must surrender.

"I was groggy," he recalled, "but I also heard someone say, 'If you're a Jewish G.I., throw your dog tags away because there are SS troops here.' "

Shapiro, obeying without thinking, threw his dog tags marked with the "H" for Hebrew into a potbellied stove in the middle of the room. He had never paid much attention to the dog tags. They were worn in the same spirit as Catholics wore a "C" and Protestants a "P." Religions were equally respected; appropriate ministrations to the dead or injured were important. Even now he did not associate destroying them with a sense that being Jewish put him at risk of death in Hitler's Europe.

His father, Jacob, had fled persecution and hardship in Europe, coming to the United States in 1903, from the Minsk area in what is now Belarus. But the years in the Bronx since then had been devoted above all to assimilation. The past had a name -- Europe -- and the Shapiros wanted to put it behind them. Like most American Jews, Shapiro had little awareness of the mass murder of European Jews when he was drafted in 1943, despite the fact that in the previous year about 2.7 million Jews had been killed by the Nazis.

Now he walked out of the aid station with his hands above his head. The Germans searched him. They took a gold ring he had been given by his brother for his bar mitzvah. Shapiro was left with an International Red Cross card that now, without dog tags, was his only means of identification.

The next morning, he joined a column of American captives trudging into Germany. After three days, they reached the railhead at Gerolstein. Dogs barked as he was piled into a boxcar, his head still pounding. Shapiro listened to other men moan from injury. Pressed against one another like milk cartons in a refrigerator, the G.I.'s shouted at one another as they maneuvered for the best positions. They used the straw in the boxcars for toilet paper until it ran out, and then they used letters from home, smearing excrement on the words of their loved ones. It was an introduction to the extremes to which they would be driven by the urge to survive.

The Germans provided part of a loaf of bread one day, a little water another. Thirst is worse than hunger, more insistent. Some men tried to drink their own urine, but found they could not.

On Christmas Eve, Allied bombing aimed at preventing German troops from reaching the front seemed to lift the boxcars off the ground and then drop them with a crash, yanking stomachs in and out. In the lulls, Shapiro heard Germans singing Christmas carols.

At last, on Dec. 26, the doors of the cattle cars were opened to reveal the spa town of Bad Orb, about 35 miles east of Frankfurt, a place far enough from the front lines to be intact, a cozy German collection of cobblestone streets and gabled homes: thoroughly gemütlich. The Americans fell in the snow and put fistfuls in their mouths.

Just outside town in the hills was a camp called Stalag IX-B, a collection of one-story barracks surrounded by barbed wire. It was a prisoner-of-war camp but, for 350 of the American prisoners, it was also preparation for the slave camp of Berga, farther east. Accounts differ of how Jews were concentrated and segregated at Stalag IX-B for transport to Berga. In sworn testimony given to the War Crimes Office at Fort Dix, N.J., on Sept. 7, 1945, Arthur J. Homer, a private in the 28th Infantry Division, said he and other prisoners were given a form to fill out in early January 1945 that included "a questionnaire on religious faith."

Homer, who was not among the 350 prisoners sent to Berga, went on to say that the ranking American officer in the camp at the time suggested that there would be "no harm done if we answered the questionnaire as directed." Homer continued: "Soon after these questionnaires had been answered and collected by the German camp authorities, prisoners of war who had stated they were of the Jewish faith were segregated in barracks No. 32 in the American compound."

A short time thereafter, Johann Carl Friedrich Kasten of the 106th Infantry Division, the chief "man of confidence" or elected leader of the American prisoners below officer rank, was told to advise any Jewish prisoner who had not indicated his faith on the questionnaire to report to Barracks 32 on threat of punishment, Homer testified. Kasten, a proud German American from Milwaukee, refused -- and was sent to Berga.

This, however, is only one of several accounts of how the Germans identified Jewish prisoners. The prisoners had no calendars, they were often sick and they tried to suppress their memories after the war, so it is not surprising that their recollections do not always coincide. What is not disputed by anyone is that the segregation took place.

Shapiro, for example, recalls no written questionnaire before he was put in what became known as the Jewish barracks. Kasten and Littell remember a muster in late January of hundreds of prisoners on a parade ground. A German commandant stepped up on a platform and said: "Alle Juden, ein Schritt vorw* rts" -- All Jews, one step forward. When nobody moved, Kasten was beaten by Nazi officers, who then picked men they thought looked like Jews.

Gerald Daub of the 100th Infantry Division told me that about two weeks after his arrival at Stalag IX-B in early January, he was informed by his barracks leader that the Germans wanted to separate the Jews from other prisoners, but that these efforts should be resisted. At a roll call the next morning, none of the Jews identified themselves. Daub's leader, clearly under pressure from the Germans, then instructed the Jews in his barracks that they would have to turn themselves in. "I was very uncomfortable with that," Daub recalled. "The next morning we did step forward."

But some Jews avoided the roundup. Edwin Cornell, of the 28th Division, who had buried his Hebrew Bible in the dirt of Germany before being pushed into the boxcars, said that about two weeks after arrival at the camp, an order was delivered that all Jews were to report to a certain barracks.

"My first thought was Who in hell, why in hell, how in hell do they have to do this to me or any other Jew?" Cornell told Charles Guggenheim in an interview for the documentary "Berga: Soldiers of Another War." "We are American soldiers. We are fighting for our country. It's entirely against the Geneva Conventions."

Cornell had a buddy, Fred Roys, in whom he confided that he did not know how to respond. Roys told Cornell he would be a fool to give himself up; he offered to take his dog tags and hide them. Cornell was persuaded, but had the impression that "the majority" of Jewish G.I.'s complied.

Unlike Cornell, Peter P. Iosso, a Christian, was sent to Berga. His view is that the Germans "made an effort to get every Jewish American soldier on the work detail" and then took others either picked at random or identified as troublemakers. Iosso places himself in the last category. He had confronted an American prisoner profiting from acting as a middleman for G.I.'s seeking to barter watches for cigarettes. The prisoner, Iosso says, "may have said to the Germans, look, this Iosso, he's a troublemaker."

No record has been found of any German order to send a group of Americans to Berga. But it is known that by August 1944, an ambitious program with the code name Schwalbe ("swallow") for the construction of underground synthetic-fuel factories was in place, with the Berga site set as the highest priority. It is also known that the SS had "full authority" to seek workers for this program in German prison camps.

The first European prisoners destined for slave labor arrived in Berga on Nov. 12, 1944, but they were mainly Jewish survivors of Auschwitz and other camps; their state was pitiful. The SS commander of Berga, Lt. Willy Hack, sent many back to Buchenwald. Workers in better condition were required. So it was natural enough for the Nazis to try to gather American Jews from the overcrowded Stalag IX-B, even as they went on bringing European Jews like Hauer to Berga.

On June 15, 1946, Arthur A. Boucher, a prisoner who worked in the American personnel office at Stalag IX-B, wrote: "We received the travel orders for the 350 men, and the Germans insisted that all men of the Jewish faith be placed on the orders. We could do nothing but comply." In the end, roughly a fifth of those sent to Berga were Jews. At the time, Jews accounted for approximately 3 percent of the American armed forces.

On Feb. 8,1945, far weaker than when he arrived just a few weeks earlier at Stalag IX-B, Shapiro and the other 349 Americans marched back down the road to Bad Orb, and were forced into freezing boxcars -- the second time in six weeks they were treated like cattle.

For five days they trundled eastward, as countless doomed loads before them had. "Some of the people were from families of European Jewish immigrants," Ernest Kinoy, a Jewish G.I. from the 106th Division, said. "And this was taking them back to what they got out from. And so it had to be alarming in that sense." Shapiro was among those who feared the worst.

the hangings took place in the Appellplatz, or gathering place, of the Berga concentration camp. Shapiro could never get used to them. The bodies of European Jews, emaciated in their striped uniforms, were left suspended from a robust crossbeam as warnings to other inmates. Shapiro would cast a furtive glance at the gallows, anxious not to draw the attention of the SS troopers. He was at a loss. He had plunged into some netherworld where hangings were public and terrified young men with yellow triangles on their sleeves were made to stand at attention before being beaten with batons, but he could not say what this hell was, how it had been constituted, why it existed or why he, a private from New York sent to Europe to fight the Nazis, had become, without knowing it, a soldier of another war, that of Hitler against the Jews.

As a medic, one of nine in the group of American prisoners, Shapiro was selected on arrival in Berga for the food detail. He had to wake before daybreak and steer a large hay wagon loaded with 50-gallon containers down the hill from a cluster of four American barracks to the adjacent concentration camp. It was here, as he waited for the food to be doled out, that Shapiro would see the hanging men, limbs stiff from some combination of rigor mortis and cold.

Shapiro did not ask questions. He collected the food. The vessels were filled with what the European concentration camp prisoners consumed: a vile liquid masquerading as coffee, turnip-based soup devoid of real sustenance and loaves of dark bread that had to be split among four to five men. The road back up the hill with the loaded wagon was agonizing, but Shapiro soon realized his hardships were mild compared with those of the Americans sent to mine tunnels in the hills.

One of those Americans was Sanford M. Lubinsky of the 28th Infantry Division. Back home in Ohio, Lubinsky worked briefly in a steel mill -- dangerous work, high up on the light steam lines, with dust clouds spewing from the coal-fired ovens. But he had never known anything like the hell of the tunnel where he started work on Feb. 15, 1945. The Germans and the bedraggled workers slaving for them were 150 feet into the bluff. Lubinsky -- at 5-foot-8, the smallest man in his infantry unit -- was made to work a heavy drill.

He had to bore straight, so the dynamite charges could be inserted, and after the blast the dust was so thick that he could scarcely see the man next to him. No fan or ventilation system dispelled the black fog. If he slackened in his work, the guards were relentless: a shovel swatted across his backside, a kick in the kidneys, a beating with the handle of a whip.

Captured at the Battle of the Bulge and selected as a Jew at Stalag IX-B, Lubinsky now had to fight the feeling of being reduced to nothing, because that was tantamount to surrender, but his body had its own rules and it did not take long for him to begin to feel his strength ebbing with the inevitability of a tide.

The strength of Edward Gorinac, from Port Huron, Mich., a private in the 110th Infantry Regiment, did not sustain him. By March 22, just over a month after arrival at Berga, he was dead. Until March 19, Gorinac, who was not Jewish, kept a diary that was recovered by a fellow American prisoner and later sent to his family.

Feb. 16, 1945: We were called at 4:30 a.m. Started to work digging out a tunnel. We had to shovel stone. The dust is bad.

Feb. 21: This place is worse than Bad Orb. They treat us as slaves. We are even on slave rations like Jews and political prisoners. And to think how we treat their prisoners.

As he grew weaker Gorinac remained observant. On March 1, he spoke of "daily beatings." By March 13, 1945, Gorinac scarcely had the strength to write.

March 13: Fred from Lansing died today. I was moved to Barracks No. 2. The infection is getting worse.

March 16: I have an awful sore throat. Tried to stay from work but was driven out.

March 19: Still in Barracks 6. Throat is sore as hell. Another man was brought in this morning. He died hour later. Making it four.

That is the last entry. Shapiro watched the dying up close. When he was not on the food detail, he worked in an improvised dispensary. It was, however, a dispensary with virtually no medicine because the Germans refused to provide any. He watched teeth get loose from lack of nourishment. He watched fecal matter accumulate in underwear. He watched as diarrhea, dysentery and diphtheria spread.

Decisions on medical attention, as on all matters relating to the Americans, were made principally by Sgt. Erwin Metz of the Landeschutz, or National Guard, Battalion 621, headquartered in Bad Sulza, about 35 miles northwest of Berga.

From testimony provided soon after the war and from the recollections of several survivors, it seems that Metz, then 52, was a man of vindictive cruelty. He was educated only to sixth-grade level and began his career as a bank official. But his professional life had been anything but smooth. In 1927, he was convicted of embezzlement. This was followed by further convictions, for fraud in 1933, the year Hitler came to power, and again for fraud in 1936. In all, Metz had served close to two years in prison.

It is in the nature of the kind of social upheaval engineered by Hitler and often of war itself to thrust the mediocre to positions of authority, where they can play out every previously frustrated fantasy. Metz's bearing was military, his manner cutting. He supervised about two dozen guards and reported to Capt. Ludwig Merz, 57, of the same National Guard battalion. But ultimate control of the camp system lay with the SS, in the person of Lieutenant Hack, who was under intense pressure to complete the facility at Berga by Oct. 1, 1945. Prisoners were driven relentlessly to this end.

David Young of the 28th Infantry Division, who was beaten with a shovel by a German guard on Feb. 20, 1945, died at Berga in March. Stanley Cohen of the 422nd Infantry witnessed his death. "I called the Kommandoführer in and told him Young was sick," Cohen testified on June 1, 1945. He continued: "This Unteroffizier Metz took a bucket of cold water and splashed it over Young."

Ten minutes later, Young was reported dead by Tony Acevedo, a medic from the 70th Infantry Division. Acevedo kept a diary, a slim volume started in March 1945, that amounts to a chilling chronicle of American deaths at Berga. In all, two dozen G.I.'s died there, almost one every two days, before the advancing U.S. and Soviet armies forced the Nazis to abandon the camp on April 5, 1945, and pushed the G.I.'s onto a death march southward.

Otto Rittermann, a German guard, was asked by American investigators on June 4, 1945, why the G.I.'s died.

"They were sick," he said, "because of the poor food and lack of air in the tunnels and effects of the blasting in the tunnels and the extremely heavy work."

Rittermann was also asked how often Metz beat the American prisoners. "Practically every day," he said. For Mordecai Hauer, after all he had been through in other camps, Berga amounted to hell in a lower key. To be in a town, even as a prisoner behind barbed wire, was reassuring after Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He could see passenger trains going through Berga a couple of times a day. The food was terrible, but perhaps a little better than at Auschwitz. When local women occasionally slipped turnips, potatoes or apples to the prisoners, the guards sometimes turned a blind eye.

So it was that Hauer, a 19-year-old Hungarian Jew from Goncz, and young American G.I.'s from New Jersey and Wisconsin found themselves in the same little outpost of the Holocaust in the dying weeks of Hitler's war and saw and felt different things because of what they had seen before. To the Americans, the concentration camp was a place of unspeakable horror peopled by eerie shadows of human beings whose reduction to the state of emaciated somnambulists was a terrifying mystery, a puzzle only gradually unraveled as their own treatment at the hands of the Nazis opened their eyes to the extent of German barbarism. To Hauer -- who knew the Nazi roundup of the Jews in Goncz, the selections of Josef Mengele, the wholesale dispatches of Jews to the gas chamber, hourlong nocturnal marches to a mine where he labored, the death of his father, mother and brother, the mass burning of prisoners, a death march from Auschwitz to Buchenwald and its accompanying executions and finally near-death by freezing in a room-size refrigerator where he was held as a punishment at Buchenwald -- to this young European, the Berga concentration camp was something better than he had known. In these divergent visions, perhaps, lurked something deeper that presaged the years ahead. On the one hand, there was American ignorance, but also the naïveté of a country with a belief in itself and its power to do good, a nation with enough innocence still to be appalled by horror; on the other, European knowledge, a knowledge carried in the skin and so terrible as to be indelible, an awareness of a kind of collective suicide, a consciousness of having plumbed such depths that faith seems implausible, ambition misguided, power treacherous and healing elusive. The river was high, swollen with the melted snow of early spring. On north-facing slopes patches of ice lingered, but the grip of winter was broken. It was April 5, 1945. The Americans embarked on a march to an unknown destination, guarded by aging Germans under the command of Metz and his superior, Merz, who had received the order to move all the Americans southward.

They were being herded away from the Allied advance, but there was no more serious purpose to their movement than there had been to the tunneling that decimated their ranks. The tunnels went nowhere, and now there was nowhere to go; the Allied noose had closed. Driven by Germans obedient to the last, the Americans were wandering without reason in a Europe in ruins.

The men were soon strung out over several hundred yards. Some had swollen feet; they couldn't get boots on. The weakest lay prone on a wagon, first pulled by a horse, later pushed by the men. After walking all day, they reached Greiz, about 10 miles south of Berga, and were lodged in a school. They were provided with straw on which to lie down and they squabbled over how much straw each got. That night, in silence, four of them died: Louis Young, Vincent Lonergan, Charles Wilson and Robert Claffy.

Shapiro pushed the wagon of the dying. Excrement, he noted, turned green as the Americans were driven to eat grass. On the second day, they trudged southwest toward Mühltroff, about 12 miles, and stopped for a night. The Germans hauled out the corpses in the morning: Ernest Strada, Frank Fladzinski, Joseph Rhlagar, Chester Vincent.

Onward the Americans moved, due south now, toward the village of Dobareuth, a dozen miles away. Israel Cohen collapsed and was loaded onto the cart. Others were tossed on top of him. "He must have died from suffocation because his face was a picture of agony," Norman Martin testified after the war.

Cohen's body was brought to the little village of Gefell on the morning of April 8, 1945, along with the corpses of John Gaines and Clarence Jahr. The G.I.'s were buried haphazardly, without coffins, without grave markers, piled one on the other in their soiled underclothing, some with dog tags, some without, withered limbs intertwined, with no more substance to their corpses than those Hauer saw at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

By April 18, when they were in the village of Seidlersreuth, many G.I.'s had a greenish look; they muttered indecipherably. Dozens were already dead. Shapiro had become an automaton. He lay gazing into space. Three more soldiers died: Leo Best, Milton Rothman and Joseph Greene.

Around the same time, as they passed through the small town of Schonficht, Metz told the guards he wanted to try to locate several G.I.'s who had escaped. He took off on a bicycle and was not seen again. During a two-week march, he had presided over the death of almost 50 American soldiers, adding to the two dozen dead at the Berga camp. Metz was stubborn and sadistic, an ordinary man for whom tyranny was opportunity. Applied in the blind service of the Führer, his commonplace traits became those of a murderer.

With Metz gone, discipline frayed, and by April 23, there were only 169 Americans left in the main group of prisoners. The single march had become several. Shapiro and Daub were still with the largest contingent. As Daub struggled to save the 49th and last prisoner to die on the march -- Jack Bornkind from Detroit -- the sounds of battle abruptly drew nearer.

Shapiro still sees the scene: he staggers out of the barn where he and his fellow soldiers are held. He notices the big white star on a Sherman tank. It is very bright -- too bright. The glare seems vicious, and people are running back and forth, screaming and waving. Who are these skeletal figures in American uniforms? Somebody fires a shell in the direction of the barn and everyone hits the ground. Shapiro gets to his feet, tottering, and a jeep pulls up. From it comes an American voice: "Climb in, soldier."

Three words, a new universe. The sun is warm. Bleary-eyed, Shapiro looks to the sky. Where am I? His liberator hands him a chocolate bar, a ration. It is familiar to him, but strange, an object from another world. He can't get the wrapping off. Helplessly, he fumbles with the chocolate until at last one of the Americans on the jeep opens it for him.

He is starving but can scarcely eat. He is free but can scarcely smile. He is a young man but scarcely more than a lost child. Who are you? Where have you been? The shoulder patch on his jacket tells the members of the 11th Armored Division who freed him that Shapiro comes from the 28th Infantry Division. But he seems unrecognizable, to them, to himself. Erwin Metz, the tormentor of the Americans, was at his home near Berga when American War Crimes Investigating Team 6822, headed by Maj. Fulton C. Vowell, arrested him on June 19, 1945. Vowell interrogated him that day. Dozens of G.I.'s died on the march, Metz conceded. Asked why, he said they were weak.

"Were you in Greiz?" Vowell asked, according to a transcript.

"Yes."

"Isn't there a hospital at Greiz?"

"Yes, there is."

"Why didn't you take them to the hospital?"

"Because I did not have an order."

"You knew they were dying, didn't you?"

"No."

"They did die, didn't they?"

"Do you have to have an order to put a dying man in hospital?"

When the trial of Metz and Merz opened on Sept. 3, 1946, in Dachau, they both pursued the same line: they were mere pawns with no choice but to obey orders. None of the Berga survivors were present at the trial to rebuff them -- an astonishing aberration.

Metz made his last appeal to the court on the afternoon of Oct. 15, 1946. He declared: "In my manner of leading the detail, I followed a saying by Beethoven: 'Brother is working for Brother. When he can help, he does it gladly.' "

The court adjourned for two hours before pronouncing the death sentence for both men. Despite the shortcomings of the prosecution's case, it appeared that Metz and Merz would receive the severest punishment. But higher American authorities were to decide otherwise.

Kenneth Royall, the secretary of the Army appointed in 1947, argued that the rapid reindustrialization of West Germany, now on the front line of the conflict with the Soviet Union, should be a priority and that denazification should not stand in its way. Increasingly, American policy conformed.

It was against this backdrop that the appeals of Metz and Merz went through the review process. In early 1948, Gen. Lucius D. Clay, the United States military governor in Germany, commuted Metz's sentence to life imprisonment and Merz's to five years. Merz walked free in 1951. Metz remained in prison until 1954, when he was released on parole. In the end, he served a nine-year sentence, roughly a year for every eight Americans killed.

One man, SS Lt. Willy Hack, was conspicuously absent from the Dachau trial. The commander of the Berga camp eluded the Allies. But he was spotted in the East German town Zwickau in 1947, and hanged by the Communist authorities on July 26, 1952, in Dresden.

Hack died for his crimes in the Soviet sector, but Metz and Merz were spared by America. This was no more than the logical end to a saga of evasion. History is written by the victors. But the minds of the victors quickly turn to the new worlds they have inherited through force of arms. It is these worlds they want to shape, these struggles they want to engage. With their minds so focused, the past easily becomes just another weapon to manipulate in the cause. Shapiro's own cold war, his flight from himself and from truth, went on until 1997. That year, at a reunion of prisoners of war from Stalag IX-B, Acevedo showed him the Red Cross armband Acevedo wore in combat. It is a sepia-colored piece of cloth with a red cross at its center. During their time at Berga, Acevedo had asked his fellow medics to sign the armband. There, in the top left corner, was Shapiro's signature, along with his New York address. The sight of his name provoked uncontrolled sobbing.

He had been there. It was as simple as that. Been in the places where his nightmares took him. These were not dreams. They were his past. That past had taken him into the midst of Hitler's assault on European Jews. Another 349 Americans, of all faiths, had been there with him. Shapiro was a Holocaust survivor. For decades, that fact proved impossible to contemplate in a country that would scarcely avow the existence of Berga. The armband became his talisman. It gave him a new power. To live unaware is to accept half a life.

In different ways, through different epiphanies, many of the Berga survivors came in their 70's to a new acceptance of the storm that took them in their youth. Changes in the world helped them. Germany was unified and eager to expiate the last of its guilt, so as to live at last as a normal country, at peace at the center of the European continent.

On April 23, 2002, Shapiro received a letter from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. It began: "We are pleased to inform you that you are approved for payment under the Claims Conference Program for Former Slave and Forced Laborers." Almost a half-century after Metz walked free, Germany admitted that Shapiro and others like him were American slaves of the Reich.

Hauer has been receiving money from the German government for many years, compensation for the murder of many of his relatives.

Recently, I decided I wanted to see Hauer and Shapiro together, the Hungarian Jew from Goncz, the American Jew from the Bronx. Perhaps they brushed past each other at Berga 60 years ago.

We gather at Hauer's winter home in Aventura, Fla. The apartment overlooks a golf course and, in the distance, behind the high-rises, lies the ocean. It is a restful view. Both men have had quadruple bypasses in recent years and take drugs for hypertension. Hauer often has a faraway look, as if he is gazing at the world from a lofty perch. "In the last year," he says, "I have grown 10 years older. I am thinking a lot about my parents, whether I might see them again."

Shapiro is very much of this world. He talks intensely, points a finger at Hauer from time to time, tries to draw closer to him. They have no recollection of seeing each other at Berga. There is an odd tension between the two men, one I didn't expect. It seems rooted in a kind of competition over who is more of a victim, one that becomes apparent when Shapiro speaks of the ersatz coffee at Berga for the third time and Hauer shoots back, "You seem to regard that coffee as the ne plus ultra of suffering." He points out that Shapiro came home to his family while he did not.

This is too much for Shapiro. "You had a terrible time," he says, his finger jabbing. "I am not denying that. I am not saying that everyone has to have the same kind of terrible time. This is not about one-upmanship. We both suffered and did not want to remember that."

Hauer looks out toward the ocean, past Shapiro. His pale blue eyes are distant. Dying begins with a falling away, on the inside, and you step far outside yourself to perceive that you have become very small. He knew that feeling, several times, during the war. "Man," he says suddenly, "is a strange animal. I look around me and I think: This, too, shall pass."

Roger Cohen writes the Globalist column for The International Herald Tribune. His book "Soldiers and Slaves," from which this article is adapted, will be published by Alfred A. Knopf in April.

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A Guide to the Best Things to do in Bergamo, Italy

Last Updated on 19th August 2023 by Sophie Nadeau

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Bergamo is the hidden gem of Lombardy, an Italian destination often missed or forgotten in favour of its more famous neighbour, the design capital and fashion city of Milan. But if you do choose to head to Bergamo, then make sure to wander its cobbled lanes and soak up its historic atmosphere. After all, you certainly won’t be disappointed! Here’s a quick travel guide to this beautiful Italian city and the best things to do in Bergamo .

How to visit Bergamo

Is bergamo worth visiting, how long do you need in bergamo, #1 visit the tempietto di santa croce, #2 admire the old bishop’s palace, #3 dine in il circolino, #4 visit the duomo di bergamo (bergamo’s cathedral), #5 admire the cappella colleoni (colleoni chapel), #6 visit the museo donizettiano, #7 enjoy coffee in the piazza vecchia, #8 take the funicular up to the citta alta, #9 take the funicular up to the rocca di san vigilio, #10 enter the basilica of/di santa maria maggiore, #11 explore the museo di scienze naturali, #12 torre civica (climb to the top of the bell tower), #13 venetian walls, #14 castello di san vigilio (castle of saint vigilio), #15 walk through the bergamo city gate, #16 soak up some history wandering the cobbled lanes, #17 take a day trip to milan, #18 be amazed by the accademia carrara, #19 enjoy the city with a guided tour or cooking class, #20 sample local food, #21 take one of the best day trips from bergamo, luxury accommodation in bergamo, mid-range accommodation in bergamo, how to visit bergamo as a day trip from milan, what is bergamo known for, how many days do you need in bergamo, enjoyed reading about the best things to do in bergamo pin it now, read it again later:.

Thanks to its position just a fifteen-minute bus ride away from an international airport, it couldn’t be easier to visit Bergamo on your next European adventure.

After all, one of the biggest travel mistakes that travellers make when heading to Northern Italy is missing out on this underrated gem of a city. And once in Bergamo, the city couldn’t be easier to explore by either funicular or on your own two feet.

Set over several levels as a result of its position in the foothills of the Italian mountains, the romantic and mysterious city is the perfect destination for a weekend getaway.

Though we loved our stay in the chic and historic Angolo del Poeta , those looking for a luxurious experience will soon fall in love with the Relais San Lorenzo .

If you’re wondering whether or not to add Bergamo to your Italy travel itinerary, then the answer should be a resounding ‘yes’. Medieval architecture, local cuisine, and an authentic Italian town a little off the beaten path, Bergamo is a stunning destination in Northern Italy.

Characterised by its Venetian Walls, cobbled lanes, and welcoming ambience, there are plenty of reasons to visit Bergamo. Of all the reasons to visit Bergamo, make it the fact that you’ll be visiting a place which many miss.

With regular budget flights touching down in Bergamo’s airport on a daily basis, many assume that Bergamo is the kind of place you fly into, and then leave directly.

However, this is most certainly not the case and avoiding this Italian town would be your first mistake! Instead, ensure to dedicate at least a night or two to discover the best attractions Bergamo has to offer.

After all, it’s not every day of your Northern Italian trip that you’ll discover a city that’s relatively underrated in comparison with its nearby neighbours, such as Milan and Lake Como, yet remains a destination which retains all the charm of a unique holiday experience.

While you could simply stop off in Bergamo, we advise a longer stay to really allow yourself to get a feel for the place. Looking for one of the best-kept secrets of Italy ?

The stunning city is perfect for a weekend break- or perhaps a longer stint- for those looking to go a little off the tourist track and discover something new.

After all, the city has plenty of accommodation options to suit every budget, including this luxurious place to stay and this historic B&B we stayed at for an absolute steal!

Otherwise, you should know that visiting Bergamo couldn’t be easier thanks to a wealth of affordable train links to the rest of Italy and beyond.

Bergamo is even served by its own international airport offering flights to the UK, France, the Netherlands, and plenty of other European destinations.

The time to get from the airport to the city centre is just under half an hour by bus and costs just a few euros each way, making the city easily accessible even on the shortest of vacations.

20+ Best Things to do in Bergamo

Lying in the shadows of the Basilica di Santa Maria, this stunning and incredibly ancient 11th-century chapel is hidden in plain sight, to the extent that most simply pass it by, never even realising that it exists (even the locals who live in Bergamo!) .

Easily one of the best-kept secrets and hidden gems of Bergamo, the stone structure leans to one side and is truly a glimpse of Bergamo history. The octagonally shaped Tempietto di Santa Croce is small and filled with murals dating all the way back to the middle ages.

Though the interior of the ecclesiastical building is often closed to the public and only open at select times throughout the year, it can still be enjoyed from the outside!

The ‘broletto’ is located next to the Basilica di Santa Maria and was built on the site of the old Roman forum. Open to the public and free to visit, the Old Bishop’s Palace is covered in ancient murals and old paintings and is often empty.

This means that you’ll most likely be able to admire this masterpiece free from the distraction of others. Wander around its dark depths and emerge on the other side to enjoy the delights of the Piazza Vecchia.

Tell me: have you ever dined in a former prison? Well, neither had I until I headed to Bergamo. Stroll down a small pedestrianised path away from the old town centre and you’ll end up in front of a vintage wooden door.

This is the beginning of your ultimate dining experience at Il Circolino . Outside, the sound of music drifts into the alleyway and the smell of fresh pizza lingers in the air.

Head inside for some authentic Italian cuisine and plenty of local wine! We particularly loved the fragrant risotto, well-priced wine list, and mouthwatering desserts.

Bergamo was once home to two cathedrals, though only one survives to this day. You’ll find the sole surviving cathedral in the very centre of the old city (elevated town), just next to Piazza Vecchia.

Part of the Roman Catholic church, this ecclesiastical building is often overlooked by its more sumptuous counterpart, that of the basilica Santa Maria. The cathedral is free to visit and is open on a daily basis between 7 AM and 7 PM.

Dedicated to Saint Alexander of Bergamo (whose remains are now housed in an urn on the cathedral’s grand altar) , it’s the seat of the city’s current bishop and was constructed in the 15th-century.

Wander inside, and you’ll see intricate decor, beautiful frescoes, and the tiara of Pope John XXIII, who is now known as Saint John XXIII.

Ornately designed and even more intricate to its interior, the chapel of Colleoni is a breathtaking mausoleum dedicated to Mark, Bartholomew, and John the Baptist.

Built in the 15th-century, this church is one of the best examples of Renaissance architecture you could hope to find anywhere in Northern Italy, let alone in Bergamo! Please note that as much of the collection is in private hands, photography is not allowed inside the chapel.

However, this should definitely not put you off visiting as the Cappella is a true feast for the eyes… After all, this number of beautiful carvings and oeuvres d’art are best experienced without the distraction of modern technology.

Housed in the 12th century former Palace (what cultural space isn’t when it comes to Italy?) , a museum was established in 1906 to celebrate the life, works and collections of Donizetti, the iconic Italian composer.

Enter inside to explore the exhibitions, admire the interior of an old palace and be amazed by the sheer volume of frescoes, paintings and courtyards located within the museum’s walls.

Like many smaller Italian towns and cities, the prices of Bergamo are much less than those of major cities such as Rome and Milan. As a result, it’s often possible to enjoy coffees and other beverages at reasonable prices, even in the centre of town, right on the main square.

Granted, the prices are obviously more expensive than in other parts of town. But then again, there’s nothing quite like admiring the old town square while enjoying your first espresso of the day.

Birds, the buzz of tourist chatter, and all! For more information about coffee in Italy, here’s how to order coffee in Italy just like an Italian!

Bergamo is a city divided into two parts; largely owing to its status as a hillside town- in all senses of the word. The newer part of the city is the Città Bassa (lower city), which as its name would suggest, sits in a lower position on a fairly flat plateau. This area is a financial hub and is complete with plenty of open piazzas and wide boulevards.

There is not one but two funiculars to take when you head to Bergamo. This is as the city is roughly divided into two main parts, with a further sub-division once you reach High Bergamo (known in Italian as the Città Alta) .

Built in the Alpine foothills, hills are obviously abundant! Known as Bergorum during the Roman era, the Città Alta dates back thousands of years.

The oldest part of the city is divided into two further parts; the touristic centre (where you’ll find the Duomo and all the restaurants), as well as the Rocca di Bergamo area, site of an ancient fortress and now home to some breathtaking terraces and restaurants.

While in the Città Alta, make sure to enjoy a traditional Italian coffee while people-watching in the main town square, Piazza Vecchia.

Below, the newer part of the city (though also dating back at least five centuries) is known as Città Bassa (lower city). In other words, Bergamo is full of steep climbs and if you want to save time (and a fair bit of energy), you’ll want to utilise the funiculars to travel around!

For the very best view in Bergamo, you simply must take the higher funicular up the side of the mountain and straight to the very top of the city where Bergamo’s stunning position in the Alpine foothills really comes into its own. Wander around the ancient walls of the Castello di San Vigilio and take in the panoramic views.

With breathtaking views of the city and beyond at the top, the funicular (or ‘mini sky train’) up to the very edge of the city is well worth the nominal fee. This view is such that it’s well worth bringing some photography equipment along to capture the moment; so don’t forget your camera!

For the very best photos of Bergamo, take the funicolare San Vigilio just before sunset to capture the Citta Alta and Citta Bassa in golden light. Some of the other best views of the lower city can be found along the Venetian walls (where you may even spot a vineyard or two if you’re lucky).

Sit and stay a while, or enjoy a bite to eat in one of the many restaurants and cafés located on the edge of the rocks. The view is best seen in the morning or at sunset when golden hour lights up the scene and an orange glow pours over the stunning city.

Bergamo is a city of churches, and the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is sandwiched between the Cappella Colleoni and Bergamo’s cathedral. Constructed from the 12th-century onwards, the church is said to have been built by men who prayed to the Virgin Mary when a plague broke out in 1100.

The men prayed that they would be kept safe from sickness, and if this were the case, then they would build a church in Mary’s honour. The men ended up surviving and true to their word, they built an enormous church in thanks for their health.

Filled with frescoes, stuccos, tapestries and wooden marquetry, this is one of the most intricately designed churches in the region and is well worth a visit, if only to stand in awe at all of the beautiful artwork on display.

Opened to the public in 1918, the Natural History Museum of Bergamo is filled with all things science related and is the perfect Bergamo activity for if you have kids in tow (or simply if it’s a rainy day). Filled with fossils, old animals and vintage scientific equipment, head here if you’re not so keen on traditional musuems, but want to still experience a little culture.

Overlooking the entire Piazza Vecchia and in the heart of the city’s old town, one of the best things to do in Bergamo is to climb to the very top of the bell tower.

Stroll up the historical steps and be rewarded by a breathtaking view over the city and beyond. Towering at 52 metres high, the Torre Civica is the Citta Alta’s tallest tower and was built during the 12th-century.

Bergamo was once (and technically still is) heavily fortified, and a testament to this are the Venetian walls which are now designated as a UNESCO world heritage site.

The complete loop stretches over 6 km in length and walking along the high walls by foot is one of the very best introductions to the city you could hope to find.

Construction of the Venetian Walls first commenced in the 16th century under the Republic of Venice, for whom the walls are named. Today, the Renaissance era walls are some of the best preserved of their time still standing in the world today.

At the very top of Bergamo, where the mountain touches the clouds and you can see for miles upon miles, there are the remnants of an ancient castle dating back centuries.

The Castle of Saint Vigilio dates back to a time when Bergamo was constantly at war with other city-states. Dating all the way back to the 6th century AD, the Castello is filled with fortified walls, casemates, stunning vistas, and views onto the villages beyond Bergamo.

The Venetian walls which characterise Bergamo are punctured with ornate gates every once in a while, in order that foot and road traffic may pass between the Città Alta and the Città Bassa.

Head between the two districts of Bergamo by foot, and no doubt you’ll wander through at least one or two of these ancient structures. Pictured below is the San Giacomo Gate, the old entrance to the city for those travelling to Bergamo from Milan.

Of all the best things to do in Bergamo, wandering through the cobbled lanes, and soaking up the history tops the list. This Lombardy city is a place to be savoured, its atmosphere to be absorbed, and you should go where your feet take you.

After all, the best way to reveal Bergamo’s hidden gems is simply to allow the city to reveal itself to you. For a closer look at the city’s rich history, consider booking a private upper town walking tour with a guide like this one .

Bergamo has all the charm and none of the big-city prices of Milan, making it a great place to base yourself while exploring this Northern Italian region. However, if you do want to visit the Lombardy capital for yourself, then Milan is only a short train ride away, making it one of the best day trips from Bergamo.

In order to visit Milan from Bergamo, you can take the train or bus. While the bus is slightly cheaper, the train will take you right into the city centre!

Once there, you can see the Duomo di Milano, an ossuary chapel, plenty of museums and the design hub of Northern Italy for yourself. Wondering what to do in Milan? Here’s how to spend one day in Milan .

Of all the  reasons to visit Lombardy , the artwork held in many of its towns and cities is definitely near the top of the list. And one of the oldest collections of all is that held in the Academia Carrara.

The collection exists thanks to the generosity of 18th-century count, Giacomo Carrara, who donated his extensive collections to the city following his death in 1796. From then on, his properties were managed by various parties before the 1950s when the Commune of Bergamo took over.

Today, the collections can be visited for a small fee and comprise of over 1800 paintings dating from the 15th to 19th centuries. Artists represented within the works include Botticelli, Bellini, and Raphael.

For those looking to enjoy the city on a more local level, there is perhaps no better way to experience the culture of a place than by taking a class or exploring the destination on foot.

This private guided tour will show you all of the important Bergamo attractions such as the cathedral, the little cobbled lanes and more. Otherwise, for a taste of the best Italian food that Bergamo has to offer, book this Cooking Class with a Local Chef in Bergamo .

Pasta, pizza, and all the gelato : steps away from the touristic area of the city there’s plenty of local produce to be found in the form of patisseries and local wines.

Local Lombardy cuisine mirrors much of the rest of Northern Italy, lacking in tomatoes and focusing more on butter and meat-based dishes. The most famous local dish is the  risotto alla milanese, a rice dish flavoured with saffron.

If you’re looking to enjoy the best of Northern Italy a little off the beaten path, then there are plenty of day trips from Bergamo that are well worth the time.

Other than Milan (which is the easiest of day trips from the Medieval city) , you can rent a car and head out into the vineyards, or visit one of Northern Italy’s other major cities or towns via train;

Venice day trip from Bergamo: Long touted as one of the most beautiful cities in Italy, Venice is a must-see when travelling through the boot-shaped country. This full day tour from Bergamo includes highlights such as a boat ride on the Venice Lagoon, a guided walking tour of the city, and the chance to stroll through real life history. Verona and Sirmione day trip from Bergamo: Ah, Verona, the Italian City of Love, not to mention the place where Shakespeare’s fated lovers, Romeo and Juliet, hail from. This Bergamo excursion includes a visit to a summer retreat from the days of the Roman Empire at Sirmione, and the chance to explore Verona in depth.

Where to stay in Bergamo

If you’re looking to make the most of this Lombardy gem of a city, then I highly recommend dedicating a couple of days to explore Bergamo, rather than just staying for a single day. Unlike nearby Milan, staying in Bergamo can be quite affordable and there are plenty of options on offer:

Relais San Lorenzo,  Piazza Lorenzo Mascheroni, 9, 24129 Bergamo BG, Italy

If you’re looking for a place that’s a little more luxurious during your stay in Bergamo then the Relais San Lorenzo (which is only open during the shoulder and peak seasons of the year) is incredibly well rated. Set against the backdrop of the beautiful Lombardy hills, this 5-star hotel offers all of the facilities you could wish for from a luxury hotel.

Check prices and accommodation here.

UpTown Bed and Breakfast, Piazzetta Luigi Angelini, 15, 24129 Bergamo BG, Italy

If you want to truly experience the best of Bergamo, then I recommend staying in the heart of the Citta Alta. For our second night in the city, we opted to stay in the UpTown B&B where the room was clean and comfortable.

The room also came with a complimentary breakfast, of which there were several options to choose from. Deliciously cooked, we ended up having an amazing chat with the owner of the B&B! 

Check accommodation prices here.

Angolo del Poeta, Via Borgo Palazzo, 39, 24125 Bergamo BG, Italy

If you love your accommodation with a slice of history, then I highly recommend staying in the Angolo del Poeta. Situated in the lower part of Bergamo and easy to reach from the train station, the ancient walls of this place were first built over 500 years ago. Today, the B&B offers a wonderful place to stay for a reasonable cost.

Nearby Milano is just under an hour away from the train and transportation between the two cities runs on an incredibly regular basis. As such, even if you don’t have much time in Northern Italy, set aside just half a day for this easy day trip from Milan and you certainly won’t regret your choice!

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about Bergamo, Italy

Due to its wealth of historical buildings, numerous museums, and ancient architecture, Bergamo is most famous for its medieval atmosphere and culturally rich Italian experiences. The city is also well-known for being situated on a mountain, with a distinct upper and lower city.

If you’re looking for an off the beaten path hidden gem of an Italian destination, then you should totally consider a visit to Bergamo. Authentic food experiences, little-known architectural buildings, and plenty of museums await you should you choose to spend some time in Bergamo.

If you’re looking for even more inspiration about the boot-shaped country, then be sure to check out our best travel  quotes about Italy . And if you need to know more information before heading to the South of Europe, check out our  top Italy travel tips.

Bergamo is not a huge city, but you would be well served by staying overnight so as to enjoy the beauty of the Italian city without as many tourists around. You should consider staying an entire weekend in Bergamo, with extra days added if you wish to do day trips to the surrounding area.

Sophie Nadeau is a full time travel writer and photographer focused on cultural experiences in Europe and beyond. When she's not chasing after the sunset (or cute dogs she sees on her travels) she can be found reading, playing video games, and going on long hikes with her husband.

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Ended up spending a weekend in Bergamo last month as we missed a connecting flight. What a beautiful place it is. I will definitely be returning to explore more of the city when I get the chance. Recommend it 100%

@Ann Cooper, Hi Ann can you recommend where to stay? We have two nights this week but I have unfollowed injured my foot so walking is somewhat hampered but decided to still go. Any advice for two full day accommodation?

Perfect! I’m visiting Bergamo next week and will definitely use your post as a guide 🙂

Nice post! I appreciated the fact that you included places like tempietto di Santa Croce, which is relatively unknown (or, at least, unnoticed) also by many residents.

Living in a village in the neighborhoods of Bergamo, I still add a couple of tips; for example, Astino Abbey is in my opinion definetly worth a visit, especially for people who likes to walk in the nature: atcually, it can be reached with a very nice walk from Città Alta in about 1 hour, during which you basically go in the middle of Borgo Canale (a small neighborhood on the hill just below San Vigilio) and then from there you pass through some very nice spots in the middle of nature until you reach the Abbey.

Another very nice place to visit if you stay in Bergamo for a few days (maybe not for just a weekend but for more days) is the Iseo Lake, which is about 30 km from the town, or also Endine Lake.

If instead you are more the kind of person who lovers arts, you could build a route around some of the Romanic Churches of the province of Bergamo: Rotonda di San Tomé (located in Almenno San Bartolomeo, about 10 km from Bergamo) is one of the most famous, but, if you are more athletic, there is also the possibility to hire a bike and go from Trescore Balneario to Zandobbio and then to Spinone (which is on the Endine Lake) and visit the churches of San Vincenzo (Trescore Balneario), San Giorgio (Zandobbio) and San Pietro in Vincoli (Spinone): obviously they can be visited also by car, but they are connected with a very nice cycle path of about 37/38 km, totally immersed into the nature.

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According to 17 reviews, ALSA received a 4.4-star rating for this journey. Travelers were especially satisfied with the staff and the timeliness, but some complained about the ticket access. ALSA ticket prices on this trip start at $23.00

Berga to Barcelona Buses

Busbud helps you find a bus from Berga to Barcelona. Get the best fare and schedule, book a round trip ticket or find buses with WiFi and electrical outlets.

We make it our job to connect you with the most dependable bus companies that cover bus service from Berga to Barcelona.

From cheap bus tickets to more luxurious buses traveling from Berga to Barcelona, we offer a wide range of bus services to best suit your needs depending on how much your budget is.

Where are the popular bus stations and stops in Berga and Barcelona?

Frequently asked questions for your trip Berga - Barcelona

How can i travel from berga to barcelona without a car.

The bus is the best choice to get to Barcelona without a car. Traveling by bus offers a budget-friendly, secure, and easy way to go between the two cities. You also have the option of using carpooling services.

How long does it take to get to Barcelona from Berga by bus?

The travel time from Berga to Barcelona is about 1h 55m, although the minimum time it takes to get there is 1h 29m with the fastest bus. This is the time it takes to travel the 52 miles (84 km) that separate the two cities.

What is the travel distance from Berga to Barcelona?

About 52 miles (84 km) separate Berga and Barcelona.

What is the number of daily buses traveling from Berga to Barcelona?

You can choose from 21 travel times and travel with ALSA. The number of buses running from Berga to Barcelona may change based on the day of the week. Simplify your trip from Berga to Barcelona by checking the schedules and selecting the bus that fits your travel style and budget on Busbud.

What are the departure times for the first and last bus traveling from Berga to Barcelona?

The bus service has you covered with departures starting at 5:30 AM and ending at 7:30 PM.

What are the departure and arrival stations when taking the bus from Berga to Barcelona?

The majority of buses traveling from Berga to Barcelona start their journey at Estación de Autobuses de Berga and wind up at Nord. These are the main pick-up and drop-off locations on this route, but you could find others that could be a better fit for your travel plans.

What is the most cost-effective way to go from Berga to Barcelona?

Go for the bus if you want the most economical way to travel this route. The lowest price for the bus on this route is $23.

How much are the bus tickets from Berga to Barcelona?

The average price of a one-way ticket from Berga to Barcelona is $24. Over the last 30 days, the prices ranged between $23 and $24, so make sure to compare them to get the best option.

Is it possible to take a day trip from Berga to Barcelona?

Yes, it's possible to take a day trip from Berga to Barcelona! The total time it takes to make a round-trip between Berga and Barcelona is about 2h 58m. So you'll have enough time to visit Barcelona before returning to Berga in the evening.

What are the best sights and things to do in Barcelona?

Once in Barcelona, you can start exploring the city and discover its surroundings. The top sights and things to do are Casa Vicens, Casa Mila, Poble Espanyol Architectural Museum, Parc de L'Espanya Industrial and Street Art Tours.

Find cheapest prices for buses

Price is for a one-way ticket for one passenger and based on past searches.

To save money and be sure you have the best seat, it's a good idea to buy your bus tickets from Berga to Barcelona, as early as possible.

You can expect to pay from $19 to $19 for a bus ticket from Berga to Barcelona based on the last 2 days. You can expect to find the cheapest price for the trip at $19 which is on 2024-09-09.

About Bus Travel

Bus travel tips.

Make friends with the driver. They usually know a lot about your destination and may even recommend which side of the bus to sit on to get the best views on the road between Berga and Barcelona!

From miles long of beauteous natural landscapes to impressive man-crafted sights, you're bound to be in for a visual treat on your bus trip from Berga to Barcelona.

Taking the bus creates the smallest carbon footprint compared to other modes of transport. Not to mention that buses will allow you to discover scenic gems from Berga to Barcelona that are otherwise impossible to come by with a plane.

Tune out to the fine sounds of your best music playlist on your bus trip from Berga to Barcelona while indulging in miles on end of beautiful scenic views.

Did you know?

Did you know there are on average 4,400 intercity bus departures every day in the US only? This number has been growing for 9 years in a row, yay!

One of the longest bus route in the world goes all the way from Ontario to Alberta in Canada (with the same bus). This trip is 3,435 km or 2,135 miles long and the price is a bit under $100.

Did you know some bus companies in Germany offer to their passenger low-costs snacks and regional beer based on their destination? Prosit!

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Top traveled bus routes.

Buses from Málaga to Marbella

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Popular Buses Connecting Berga

Buses leaving from berga.

• Bus from Berga to Santpedor
• Bus Berga - Tarragona
• Berga - Barcelona
• Bus from Berga to Manresa
• Bus Berga - Guardiola de Berguedà
• Berga - Gironella
• Bus from Berga to Puig-reig
• Bus Berga - Puigcerdà
• Berga - La Seu d'Urgell
• Bus from Berga to Sallent
• Bus Berga - Gósol
• Berga - Bagà
• Bus from Berga to Cambrils
• Bus Berga - Sant Llorenç de Morunys
• Berga - Navàs

Buses Going to Berga

• Bus from Puig-reig to Berga
• Bus Gironella - Berga
• Bagà - Berga
• Bus from Lille to Berga
• Bus Manresa - Berga
• Barcelona - Berga
• Bus from Vic to Berga
• Bus Cal Rosal - Berga
• Puigcerdà - Berga
• Bus from Guardiola de Berguedà to Berga
• Bus La Seu d'Urgell - Berga
• Gósol - Berga
• Bus from Ripoll to Berga
• Bus Sallent - Berga
• Cambrils - Berga

Popular Buses Connecting Barcelona

Buses leaving from barcelona.

• Bus from Barcelona to Girona
• Bus Barcelona - Antwerp
• Barcelona - Porto
• Bus from Barcelona to Cádiz
• Bus Barcelona - Almería
• Barcelona - Outlet
• Bus from Barcelona to Madrid
• Bus Barcelona - Andorra
• Barcelona - Cadaqués
• Bus from Barcelona to Sant Feliu de Guíxols
• Bus Barcelona - Tarragona
• Barcelona - Blanes
• Bus from Barcelona to Salou
• Bus Barcelona - Calella
• Barcelona - Granada

Buses Going to Barcelona

• Bus from Cádiz to Barcelona
• Bus Milan - Barcelona
• Outlet - Barcelona
• Bus from Faro to Barcelona
• Bus Cañete - Barcelona
• Salamanca - Barcelona
• Bus from Madrid to Barcelona
• Bus Salou - Barcelona
• Tossa de Mar - Barcelona
• Bus from Girona to Barcelona
• Bus Calella - Barcelona
• Tarragona - Barcelona
• Bus from Amposta to Barcelona
• Bus Sant Feliu de Guíxols - Barcelona
• Platja d'Aro - Barcelona

Popular airport transfers

• Berga to Barcelona Airport

Popular international trips

• Bus from Mexico City to Veracruz
• Bus Veracruz - Mexico City
• Xalapa - Mexico City
• Bus from Mexico City to Xalapa
• Bus Veracruz - Xalapa

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Berga to barcelona.

Getting from Berga (ES) to Barcelona (ES), all stations by bus is easy and fairly cheap compared to other travel options. The number of daily departures might vary depending on the travel date. On the busiest travel dates between Berga (ES) and Barcelona (ES), all stations, there is more than 10 departures. The earliest departure time is at and the latest arrival time is at . The fastest bus has a travel time of hours and minutes. In Berga (ES) there are 2 departure locations and in Barcelona (ES), all stations there are 7 arrival locations.

Map travel route Berga (ES) to Barcelona (ES), all stations