Busking Bergamo
Yesterday evening I took an evening trip to Bergamo, which I’ve been meaning to visit for years. The city has two very distinct parts, a medieval center on top of a huge hill and a more modern (post-16th century) lower city at the hill’s base, and I’ve been hearing about its beauty for years. Since Brescia, where I’m currently based, is only an hour away by a very inexpensive train I decided to give it a whirl.
The hilltop area (“città alta”) is the legendary part of the city which has rapidly made it a destination of choice among European vacationers (budget airlines flying into the nearby airport have also helped this a great deal). However I haven’t seen it yet. I wanted to concentrate on the lower city, the part where the locals can be found. I looked at a map, found the local Benetton store (which does excellent market research on foot traffic and has had an store near almost every pitch I’ve played), and thanks to google discovered that the nearby streets were pedestrianized. Perfect.
I missed my train, the one that would have given me an hour to explore a little and find the best places to play, by about 40 seconds. Happily there was another an hour later, but time was a bit crunched. I used the time at the station to work up some new music I’ve been writing (I wrote the first version on a train, rehearsed it out of the rain in a recessed doorway of an abandoned building in Venice only to find that it didn’t work as written, and rewrote it two days ago) before heading into Bergamo an hour later than intended.
The street I was looking at was near the train station, so I didn’t lose much time there, and I was happy to see a living statue as I scouted locations. Even better, an accordion player was packing up to leave (I like to see other buskers since it bodes well for local regulations, but competition for pitches is annoying). I set up down the street, and was very pleased with the results. Even better, I was kind of proud that by looking at maps and a little internet research I could spot a pitch!
The hilltop area (“città alta”) is the legendary part of the city which has rapidly made it a destination of choice among European vacationers (budget airlines flying into the nearby airport have also helped this a great deal). However I haven’t seen it yet. I wanted to concentrate on the lower city, the part where the locals can be found. I looked at a map, found the local Benetton store (which does excellent market research on foot traffic and has had an store near almost every pitch I’ve played), and thanks to google discovered that the nearby streets were pedestrianized. Perfect.
I missed my train, the one that would have given me an hour to explore a little and find the best places to play, by about 40 seconds. Happily there was another an hour later, but time was a bit crunched. I used the time at the station to work up some new music I’ve been writing (I wrote the first version on a train, rehearsed it out of the rain in a recessed doorway of an abandoned building in Venice only to find that it didn’t work as written, and rewrote it two days ago) before heading into Bergamo an hour later than intended.
The street I was looking at was near the train station, so I didn’t lose much time there, and I was happy to see a living statue as I scouted locations. Even better, an accordion player was packing up to leave (I like to see other buskers since it bodes well for local regulations, but competition for pitches is annoying). I set up down the street, and was very pleased with the results. Even better, I was kind of proud that by looking at maps and a little internet research I could spot a pitch!