Ryanair might call the airport Milan-Bergamo but Milan is a good 60 kilometres away. Bergamo, on the other hand, elevated on a hill, is visible from the airport.

It’s an ancient town where terracotta-tiled roofs form shields above the defensive walls.

When I see it, for once, I don’t mind the airline’s duplicity.

The old town draws you into its heart with a funicular railway. Inside, there are treats. Walk left and you find yourself alone, wandering along cobbled streets, wondering who trod on the stones before you and who lives behind the studded wooden gates.

Turn right from the railway, however, and you’re on the main street.

It’s busy, lined with cafes selling aperitifs and local wine, or bakeries vending pizza made of fluffy dough and intensely flavoured with basil and pepper. It’s so good that I eat a chunk big enough for two, then follow up with a pastry of sliced peaches.

The shopping is eclectic. There are clothes shops where everything costs €12, right up to boutiques where children’s T-shirts start at €50. And despite this being a Sunday, the market is in full swing.

A genial farmer lets me try salami, and when I agree to buy some, it’s so cheap that I double the order and ask for a slab of pungent goats’ cheese too.

There are vendors selling jam, earrings, lavender sprays and fossils too, all crowded together in the narrow streets, as they have for centuries, explaining their wares in Italian even though I speak none. Bergamo smells of hot sun, ancient limestone and deep black espresso. It’s hard to leave.

This isn’t where I’m meant to be though. My destination is an hour away, in the foothills of the Italian Alps.

When I jerked awake mid-flight, we were cruising over powdered sugar mountains, a geography lesson in glaciation laid out before me, melting snow sliding into lakes still frozen in June, the ice lightly dusted with snow.

I’m headed that way, to Colletto Agribiorelais in Villongo Sant’Alessandro (www.booking.com, €70-150 per night), for a weekend catching up with one of my oldest friends.

The GPS takes us the scenic route, past castle walls in tiny villages, down lanes so narrow, you have to hope that they are one-way and that you’re going in the right direction.

The Colletto appears suddenly on a gravel road. The walls are faced with shards of local stone and the terrace of the main building overlooks a lovely, whitewashed pool and then a long, green valley view. Everything is perfectly designed. The owner, we’re told, is an architect.

We’re too late for dinner, but the staff offer us cold cuts.

We have to make our way around the cheese board in the right order so that we can appreciate the delicate white goats’ cheese at the beginning before our palate is assaulted by the heavier, but no less delicious, herby number at the end.

The bread is plain and unaccountably delicious, but it’s the wine that turns this simple dinner into a banquet.

They make it from the grapes grown right below the dining terrace, which are just starting to fruit again now. The one we choose is the Blanc de Blanc Millesimato, a sparkling Chardonnay costing €24.

There’s no ponderous oak flavour about this variety, it’s light and tastes of crab apples and fresh air. We finish the bottle and retire, sloshed, to our cabin-like room.

Little rowing boats are moored hapazardly, some on marker posts reminiscent of Venice

It’s so tastefully done out, I feel bad for cluttering the place up with my untidy presence.

Breakfast is a buffet with home-made jam tarts, croissants crammed with nuts, fruit and of course, an Italian cappuccino. Then we motor down the winding roads to catch the ferry at Lake Iseo.

We’re off to the island, Monte Iseo, moored in the centre of this huge lake. We sit in the sun on the deck as the island gets larger and the sides get steeper.

Little rowing boats are moored haphazardly all along the quay, some on indigo marker posts reminiscent of Venice, others just bobbing on a rope.

We’ve come to hike to the top of the hill, a shady route, where rough paving eventually gives way to a track of dried mud.

The sanctuary at the top is like an old Maltese chapel, walls dotted with the photos of local people, murals succumbing to the passage of time, fading even as you look at them.

Back at sea level, we walk along the lake, putting our feet in the cold, clear water, eating cherries and juicy flat peaches.

I watch a girl swimming and wish I’d brought my bikini. Everyone is friendly, unhurried, ready with a smile.

At the ferry stop, after failing to decipher the timetable, we just sit and wait. Old ladies nod, nudge their friends and talk about us in Italian. My friend and I put the world to rights while they observe us.

The ferry arrives randomly, cruising past a tiny islet, overloaded with a monastery and a little forest, before powering us back to the mainland.

In Iseo, we eat pistachio and hazelnut ice cream, then browse the antique shops in the cobbled squares until it’s time to wind back up the hill for a swim.

I lean on the edge of that pool and look at the view, fringed with grey-green olive trees. I can hear the bell of a goat as it browses nearby.

Dinner is sublime. A local mozzarella that releases a little cream as you cut it, home-grown tomatoes, a big, fresh salad, then a risotto with a bite, made with the vineyard’s wine and sprinkled with something that looks like cinnamon but has a huskier taste.

The bottle of rose is a little sharp for my taste, but we finish it on our terrace just the same. And the next day it’s over.

Back to ‘Milan-Bergamo and Ryanair’s irritating hand luggage policies, which have become almost impossible to obey, what with the cheese, sausage and €12 clothes shop.

If only I could have brought back a few bottles of prosecco… I make do with the feeling of mountain well-being and the powerful smell of cheese wafting out of my rucksack.

• Ryanair flies from Malta to Milan-Bergamo from around €80 return.