Despite Switzerland being a small country, and despite Melissa and I trying our best to “see it all”,  it wasn’t until July 30th that we visited the Italian part of Switzerland; 20 months after first moving to our adoptive country.  The main reason for this is that the one and only Italian canton, Ticino, is on the other side of the Alps from the rest of Switzerland.  This means that even though Lugano, (the largest city in the canton of Ticino) is just 117 miles away as the crow flies, the train ride takes 5 hours and 20 minutes, or 260 miles, to twist and turn around, over, and under the Alps.  To make the most of traveling such a distance, Melissa and I decided to make a two day trip out of it.

It was a bright sunny day when we set out Saturday morning, and the clear skies persisted to give us great views of the Alps the whole way.  Our route brought us past Lake Neuchâtel, through Zürich, then on to Swiss territory we’d never seen before.  We rode through the scenic canton of Schwyz, namesake of the country, then south through a long, narrow, mountain valley winding high into the Alps. Eventually we entered the nine mile long Gotthard tunnel and came out in the canton of Ticino.  This tunnel is not to be confused with the newly constructed, 35 mile long, Gotthard base tunnel, which will be open to traffic in December and cut an hour off the train ride to Lugano. On the other side of the Alps we again rode through a long, narrow, mountain valley, this time descending, with views out our window of lush, green, mountain sides.  Around 2 p.m. we pulled into the train station, and were greeted with the hot southern European sun.

It was a little over a mile to our hotel, but we decided to walk the distance to stretch out our legs after so much sitting.  The walk gave us our first look at the city of Lugano, situated on the large snaking lake called Lake Lugano, and built up between sugarloaf shaped hills that dotted the landscape.  The streets and buildings looked Italian, but the orderliness and cleanliness of the city gave it away that we were still in Switzerland.

We were feeling the heat by the time we made it to our hotel, so our first order of business after check-in was finding the beach. Unfortunately Lake Lugano has rocky shorelines with steep drop offs, and the only good spots to swim were fenced off with admission fees. Being tourists, we coughed up the 6 francs each to enter a beach near our hotel, and then found out the “beach” was just sand held in by a retaining wall with the same boulders and steep drop offs as everywhere else on the shoreline.  The place also had a swimming pool next to the lake, a diving raft, and a couple diving boards so it wasn’t all bad.

Around 6 p.m. we made our way back to the hotel, and then caught a bus into downtown Lugano to walk around and find some dinner. Our tour took us along a few hilly streets that reminded me of Lausanne, then up to the cathedral where we had an impressive view of the city and lake.  For dinner we ate more like Americans than Swiss by stopping at a brewpub for pizza while listening to Kid Rock play over the speakers.  As the sun was setting we strolled along the lake, then through the large “Parco Civico” garden, until we came to the city marina.  It was such a nice night we turned around at the marina and walked all the way back to our hotel along the lake, stopping for gelato along the way.

On Sunday the only sight to see on our list was Monte San Salvatore, a lookout point 2103 ft above the lake, right next to our hotel.  It had rained in the morning and was still a little cloudy at 10:30 a.m. when we loaded into a very steep funicular to bring us up.  At the top we found a restaurant and a hiking trail leading to the summit.  Following the trail up we walked past a house sized building with a museum sign, then found a different house sized building at the top.  The top building turned out to be a church that we could walk to the roof of and enjoy a stunning 360 degree view.  There were constant wispy clouds in the mountain valleys, but their rolling in and out only added to the incredible view in my opinion.  

In full view from the top was the tiny enclave of Campione d’Italia, which interestingly is part of Italy despite being completely surrounded by Switzerland.  The reason for this is that the area originally was a monastery not taking part in ancient wars.  It was never conquered or given as a gift by the pope to Switzerland like the rest of Ticino was.

On our way down from the summit we stopped at the museum, and found out, it was strange… The first room celebrated an order of medieval Catholics who dressed up in KKK costumes.  The next room showcased relics from saints consisting mostly of bone fragments encased in glass.  On the second story of the museum the focus shifted to modern times, with one room highlighting spelunking on Monte San Salvatore, and the other going over lightning research conducted in the 1920’s, by a Swiss professor who looks like a mad scientist.  If you can connect all the dots in the museum I think you might just have the plot to the next Da Vinci code book.

We ate lunch at the restaurant on the top, then followed a hiking trail to a lower view point before eventually making it back to the funicular around 2 p.m.  Our long train ride home had moments of great scenery, and moments of views blocked by rain.  Now that I’m back home I can’t help but think how much there is yet to discover in our small country.

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