Wonda's birthday(s): Locarno, Bellinzona, Lugano, Luzern

Well, it is the time for my birthday and I wanted to explore somewhere new. The weather forecast for Montreux was rain, so we knew we would get out for an overnight somewhere. The area of Switzerland that borders on Italy used to be Italy until some battle in the 1500’s. Still looks and feels like Italy too. Everyone speaks Italian, the houses are in a different style, the climate is Mediterranean and the vegetation is tropical! So is the weather, and that is exactly what I was looking for!

So of we went to Locarno and Lugano. The guide book says that Locarno is the sunniest of all Swiss towns and there are date palms, figs, pomegranate and bougainvillea growing everywhere.

To get there, we took the train up the Rhone valley (south but mostly east) and got off the train at the Italian town of Domodossola. From there we took the mountain-pass panoramic train that took us across the “Centovalli” (hundred valleys) because of all the valleys that cut down through the mountains to the main pass. The train journey was about 25kms which took about an hour and a half. During this time we crossed 79 bridges and passed through 24 tunnels. I was thrilled to be travelling through the vineyard-covered Pedemonte Valley. My favourite Italian red wines come from there and it was great to see it with my own eyes. As an aside, I will be teaching about the wines of Italy in my wine course this coming week, so it was good timing too. Besides the vineyards, we saw many old stone houses with stone roofs (hundreds of years old), incredible gorges views back down into the valleys, houses and churches built way up on the mountainside. We couldn’t help thinking about what motivated these people to decide to build so far up… astounding!

We opened our wine to sip towards the end of the journey, and once we got to Locarno, we picked up a couple of things to make our picnic complete, we jumped on a bus and went directly to Ascona to sit at the lakeside and enjoy our picnic lunch. There were a couple sun showers (sprinkles) so we stayed outside and wandered around the quaint narrow streets and then sat for an aperitif in the glorious heat of the day. We took a boat on the lake to get back to Locarno. We meandered our way through the streets of the old town and through several ‘piazza’ (town square) with cobbled stones. We checked into our hotel, shared a glass of wine on our balcony, then decided to head out to see the old castle ‘Castello Visconteo’. It dates back to the early 16th century when it was home to the Visconti Dukes of Milan, incidentally, when we visited Milan last fall we visited the ‘Castello Visconti’ in the middle of that city. This was a very powerful Italian family for centuries.

Next on our plan was to have a nice dinner somewhere. We found a place that was in a garden terrace, popular, but quiet, and we had an awesome Italian meal. Then with daylight still with us, we decided to go visit this famous old church on the hillside above the town. We were told that the views of the town and the lake were beautiful from there, so we found some stairs that had an arrow saying ‘Madonna del Sasso Sanctuary’ and started our ascent. Up, up, up we went… and not on the correct stairs as it turned out, because the stairs to the Sanctuary have alcoves for each of the ‘stations of the cross’, and we saw from the lake that they were painted yellow like the church. Anyway, after climbing way more steps than was necessary, we made our way back DOWN the hillside a way to get to the church.

Spectacular views indeed! Of course by now it was after 9:30 and we were losing our light, and the church was closed, but we did see some of the ‘stations’, so we took that pathway down to the old town. We came out just to the right of the restaurant where we had dinner! Now dark, the city had a different feel, so we wandered around the streets to check out the night-life and eventually went back to our hotel. Lots of people were partying on the terrace so we didn’t get much sleep til after 4 am.

We got up and had breakfast at 8, then headed out for the day’s adventure. There was a market in Bellinzona, so we jumped on the train and got off to wander around that town for the morning. We didn’t take the time to visit the 3 castles on the hill… we’ll do that another day. We picked up all sorts of fresh goodies from the market – bread, cheeses, a small rotisserie chicken, veggies including excellent ripe tomatoes and fresh basil, and fresh blueberries. We were dreaming of our picnic lunch at the lake in Lugano, so we jumped on the next train, got off in Lugano and took the funicular (small cable train that drags up the steep slopes)down to the lakeside. We got some cold wine and beer at the grocery stre and headed to the park. We found a perfect spot to sit in the shade and watch the lake and the people walking by. Then we walked over to the beach and hung out there for awhile. We did wade in the water, and it wasn’t cold! We found out about several music events that are taking place over the summer so we are definitely coming back here to visit! It really feels like Italy, only we use swiss francs to pay!

We knew we’d have to jump back on the train to eventually get home, so in the ‘L’ theme, we decided to go to ‘Luzern’ in the middle of the country and from there get a train to Lausanne which is just 20 mins from home. Luzern is also on a lake, and we had to travel over some crazy mountain switchbacks to get there! It was not hard to tell that we had gone from the Italian part to the German area of the country. The landscape was different, ans well as the housing. When we stepped off the train there was another obvious difference… the temperature! We walked to the lake and took an old wooden footbridge to the other side so we could poke around the streets of the old town. As we sat on a bench overlooking the river flowing into the lake, we some dark clouds moving in quickly, and the wind was picking up… so, we took the next train out of town! Rain was just starting to come down as we left… good timing! Our thoughts then turned to home, so we read on the way and looked at the changing sky. It was an excellent 2 days and I am happy to share some stories and photos with you all!