RU EN

Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland

Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 1
Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 2 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 3 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 4 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 5 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 6 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 7 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 8 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 9 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 10 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 11 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 12 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 13 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 14 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 15 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 16 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 17 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 18 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 19 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 20 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 21 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 22 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 23 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 24 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 25 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 26 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 27 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 28 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 29 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 30 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 31 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 32

I recommend visiting the following places in the Italian part of Switzerland: Lugano, Bellinzona, Lavertezzo and Locarno. If you do not rush, this trip will take two days. We first visited Locarno, walked along the waterfront there and climbed Mount Monte Bre. On the SwissPass map you can see that the price of going up this mountain is half price, shown by a dashed line.

View from Mount Monte Bre.

Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 33

View of Mount Monte Bre.

Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 34

Then we headed to Bellinzona. The main attraction there is the castles. There are several of them, but we did not manage to walk around all of them because we were late and the buses had already stopped running.

Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 35 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 36 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 37

The next morning we went to the village of Lavertezzo. Here you need to plan the route in advance because the buses run very rarely. As always, we build the route with sbb.ch. The bus stop is next to the station, but just in case we walked to the next stop; this is what it looks like:

Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 38

Lavertezzo is famous for its beautiful mountain river and old stone bridge. It is very beautiful there, the water is crystal clear, and you can see the bottom at a depth of about 4-5 meters. You can read more about it here:

Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 39 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 40 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 41 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 42 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 43 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 44

After that we went to Locarno and took a lift up the mountain there as far as the Cardada station:

Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 45 Trip to the Italian part of Switzerland - photo 46

From Locarno to the western part of Switzerland you can travel in two ways: 1) without crossing borders, 2) through the Italian side via the town of Domodossola. If you go through the Italian side, you will spend about an hour in a tunnel under the mountains. If you travel with SwissPass, that ride is free. At the border the train stops for a few minutes, and Italian border guards walk through it with a dog checking passports.