Culture
A slow day in Gromo
Half day · Easy · 3 km walking
One of the most beautiful villages in Italy, on a weekday, with nobody in a hurry.
Guide
What to do in Gromo
One of Italy's official borghi più belli, and still a working village. Here is how to spend a day in it.
Start in the square
Gromo's piazza is small, stone and unbothered. The palazzo on one side, the church on the other, a bar with four outside tables. Order a coffee standing at the counter like everyone else, then sit down for the second one.
The village made its money from iron and swords in the fifteenth century, which is why the buildings are grander than the population suggests.
Eat what the valley eats
Casoncelli — filled pasta with butter, sage and pancetta — is the dish of this valley, not just of Bergamo. Order it at a cellar table, with a bottle of Valcalepio, and do not plan anything for the afternoon.
With children
There is a playground below the old centre with a climbing structure children take twenty minutes to figure out, a gelateria fifteen minutes down the valley in Clusone, and enough car-free stone to let them run.
Practicalities
Shops close between 12:30 and 15:30. The square is a five-minute drive or a thirty-minute downhill walk from Spiazzi di Gromo. Parking is free below the centre outside August.
Do it yourself
Food
Casoncelli and a cellar table
2 hours · Easy · —
A long lunch of hand-folded pasta in a room with four tables and no menu in English.
Culture
Frescoes, gelato and a very old clock
3–4 hours · Easy · 2 km on foot
Half a day in Clusone: painted facades, the planetary clock, two enormous sequoias and gelato on a warm stone ledge.