Switzerland

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My last few days in Ticino I moved over to Locarno, at the northernmost part of Lago Maggiore where it’s Swiss. (I showed you a few views from the train of bits of the Italian parts farther south, a while ago.) Above and below middle, you can basically see from Locarno on the NW corner of the lake, to the northeastern corner which means these shots cover maybe half the Swiss parts of this enormous lake.

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Not a camera error: the shadow versus light being shown past Monte San Salvatore by the setting sun managing to shine past some parts of other mountains south and west. As seen from the waterfront at Campione d’Italia, the exclave of Italy on this segment of Lake Lugano, after that cruise back from Morcote I mentioned in an earlier post :-).

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This is the gorgeous town of Morcote, at the southern tip of the peninsula that starts with Lugano, being wrapped around by two arms of Lake Lugano. At the bottom I’m showing you some of the towns streets, which are quite remarkable; the neighboring and smaller village of Vico Morcote has even more amazing little pedestrian staired streets and gorgeous houses built into the hillsides, which I’ll share at some point as well.

In the gallery below you’ll also see a “photo spot” which is part of something called the Grand Tour of Switzerland, and is apparently a thing. I’ve of course seen these, and folks posing for selfies or real photos by them, in many places…this time, with ten minutes to spare while I waited for the boat to take me back over to Campione d’Italia, I decided you might as well know you can do this as well, if you come to Switzerland. (More about that boat ride later, too: it went from Switzerland to Italy then back and forth another time while I was on it. Fun!)


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This and the last post are all from a lovely walk between Gandria, on the northern shore of the northeastern-most arm of the many-armed Lake Lugano, and the city of Lugano itself. (I’d taken a boat out to Gandria so I could walk back.) Below, you see a panorama which shows you the sunlit hill which marks the northeastern point of the bay on which Lugano sits, after which you get into that northeastern-most arm of which the majority is in Italy. As is the southwestern-most part, and also a wee exclave in the arm on which sits Bissone where I stayed. That arm, which connects to the rest of the lake further south & west, extends between the rounded mountain on the far right and the range in the middle (at the top of which it’s Italy again, fyi). Just sayin’ in case you wonder what you’re seeing or want to check it all out on a map :-). The photo at the top is looking from just below the sunlit hill (below) south towards the mountain that sits at the top of the arm I lived on. Sorry if this is TMI…


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Though Zermatt’s best known for its Matterhorn, and Ticino for its lakes I think – a wee reminder that both cantons have both lakes and mountains :-). This aptly-named Green Lake (Gruensee) sits on the “Five Lakes Walk,” part of which I walked on my way down from the first station above Zermatt itself, coming down from what I showed you last post :-).

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So I told two Swiss friends (during text chats conducted as I walked along the shores of another stunning arm of this lovely neighbor lake) that Switzerland has officially annoyed me in the way that a vegetarian restaurant annoys me: too many irresistible options. Those texts were about where I’ll go next – and these shots just share more. Everywhere one turns here, one just sees more lovely things to photograph. In the gallery below are two photos shot from moving trains en route to Zermatt, plus three including the bottom panorama taken from the balcony of the place I stayed in. Impossible to do anything other than gawk out train windows around here, if it’s daylight.