Touring Ticino Top to Bottom

Heading into Ticino, the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, was an interesting transition. It very quickly felt culturally very different from all the other Swiss areas we’d been traveling through. Things seemed more relaxed, the weather was warmer, it was more… Italian?

On our drive from Lucerne, we entered Ticino by driving over Gotthard Pass at the northern edge of the region. We stopped first in the town of Bellinzona to look at a few castles (there are three practically right next to each other), and then we continued to Valle Maggia where we stayed a couple nights in a traditional rustico. The valley there has lots of rock, and almost everything had been constructed from it. It felt like everything had been the same for hundreds of years.

Valle Maggia has a rocky, winding river running through it that reminded us a lot of the Yuba. We went for a  hike up the side of the valley, passing old rusticos that had been used by herders in the summer months, as well as new rusticos that looked like wonderful vacation retreats. Our hike ended at a perfectly magical swimming hole.

The river in Valle Maggia flows down to Lago Maggiore, meeting the lake at the towns of Ascona and Locarno. Near Ascona, we visited Monte Verità, wandering around to learn a bit about the history of the site. We had delicious Italian food for dinner by the lake in Ascona and then walked along the lake with some gelato. The next day we drove further south towards Italy, and we stopped at Lugano for a walk through a park (with gelato) and then went for a short hike up Monte Bré for some lake views.

Finally, the last thing we did before leaving Switzerland to cross into Italy was visit a winery. We drove into the town of Mendrisio and stopped at the information office, figuring they could give us a recommendation on where to go. We learned that it’s very unusual to not plan your winery visits in advance (the guy really couldn’t believe we wanted to go wine tasting that very same afternoon), and all of the wineries required appointments. Luckily, the guy at the info office was able to help us a make a last minute one. The experience of wine tasting there was a bit different for us — we were welcomed at the back door of the winery by the winemaker, who gave us a personal tour of the facilities and then took us to a private room laid out with white tablecloths to taste the wines. We felt like we were either very special guests or kind of imposing on his time, but it was fun anyway, and we ended up buying some bottles to bring home with us (apparently you can bring as many bottles as you want from Switzerland to Italy, but you can only bring 6 back from Italy to Switzerland).