Living nativity in the Vandullo hamlet

The nativity was open from 7.30 to 11 pm. Visitors entered in staggered groups, accompanied by guides, on a route of about twenty minutes through old houses, porticoes and courtyards reopened for the occasion, with tools and crafts now forgotten. The primary-school children worked alongside the adults in the trades, showed the games of the old days, acted as guides and sang in a choir at the end; the old-time school was their scene.

The lights were those of torches, braziers and period lamps, the music that of the village band, a group of accordionists and the baghèt, the traditional Bergamo instrument. At the exit the Alpini offered mulled wine. A shuttle left every fifteen minutes from 7 pm from piazza Mons. Belotti; on foot you entered the hamlet from via Drago.

The idea was born at school, as a teacher's project with her pupils, and spread to the whole community. BergamoNews lists those who collaborated: the municipal administration, the Pro Loco, the library, the Alpini, the band, the sports association, the parish, the owners of the hamlet's private houses and many volunteers. There were about ninety performers, children and adults.

Vandullo is one of the historic quarters of the main village, together with Grimoldo, Capriana and Vanini, whose names survive in the street names. It lies above the built-up area, at the foot of Monte Alben, about 500 metres as the crow flies from the village centre, and dates from the sixteenth century according to BergamoNews. In the history of skiing in the basin, recalled in the cross-country skiing page, the remains of the last ski-jumping hill, the Vandullo one, can still be seen.

The hamlet is reached from via Drago, the road that climbs from the main village towards Pian della Palla; OpenStreetMap marks via Vandullo partly as a private road. On ordinary evenings it is a cluster of lived-in houses: visit it on foot and discreetly.

None of the sources we read announces a second edition. In the La Voce delle Valli listings for December 2025 the Vandullo nativity does not appear: the main village's Christmas events were held in the square, with the markets, the band's concert in the parish church and the Cunsada lunch in Zorzone. For December 2026 it is worth checking the Pro Loco programme and the municipal notices.