SWISS WITH A TWIST!
Pretty Ticino combines crisp Alpine air with Italian f lair
ATALL, olive-skinned woman cries ‘ Ciao, bella!’ to her friend, as she kick-starts her scooter and revs off across the lakeside piazza. Two leathery men drinking coffee alfresco stop their conversation to watch her fly past, before they resume, gesticulating so wildly that they almost knock over their espressos. A scene in Italy? Surprisingly, no. This is Switzerland. Ticino, to be precise — the southernmost region, separated from the rest of the country by the Alps and sandwiched between the Italian regions of Piedmont and Lombardy, with squatters’ rights over the top quarter of Lake Maggiore.
It’s a far cry from the Switzerland I remember from childhood holidays, when I wore my hair in plaits and insisted everyone called me Heidi.
In Ticino, there isn’t a cuckoo clock in sight, yet it marries the best of two nationalities.
The climate is balmy, the coffee perfection and the inhabitants owe more to their hot-blooded neighbours than their staid countrymen behind the mountains. Yet everything runs with cool, Swiss efficiency.
Ticino is accessible via a threehour train from Zurich. At the start of the journey we’re gawping at snow-topped mountains and just a few hours later the sun emerges as if on cue, vineyards replace grazing cows and the Tannoy voice switches to Italian.
We stay right on the water in Ascona, a pretty cluster of pale blue, pink and yellow villas and mini piazzas.
All paths lead to the village’s main promenade, which runs along the water’s edge lined with gelateria and cafes. Little boys and girls with rolled-up jeans paddle at the end of stone quays, while parents nurse aperitivos and watch the lake. That’s the thing about Maggiore. Its silent magnitude makes you want to just look and think. It was this edifying effect that drew a group of European cultural idealists to Ascona in 1900. In the belief they had found Utopia, they set up a hilltop nudist community to worship nature, dance and explore radical philosophies. Psychologist Carl Jung and writer Hermann Hesse were among the experimenters. Nowadays, sun-seeking SwissGermans spill across the Alps (fully clothed) into Ascona, where they can feel as though they’re in Italy without leaving their domestic comfort zone.
Think ‘good wine’ and you might not come up with Switzerland, but the Ticinese have been quietly perfecting their vino, thanks to damp soils and fruitful vineyards. And they love an opportunity to surprise sceptic oenophiles. One such man is Urs Mader, who runs two cellars in Ascona. ‘They call me the Wine Pope of Ticino,’ he tells us, as we descend into his low-ceilinged cantina. I try my first sip of white merlot — a local speciality so clean and crisp it looks like water. ‘Of all wine, merlot is the seducer,’ says Urs, eyeing up his glass against the light.
Some 40 millionaires live in Ascona, their swanky speedboats bobbing patiently along the private jetties.
We tap into the lifestyle at the kitsch, but sumptuous, Hotel Eden Roc, where I pad around the sweeping wooden deck and gaze at Lake Maggiore from every possible vantage point.
THERE is only one thing for which it is worth stealing yourself away from the lake and that’s the restaurant, recently awarded an enviable 17 out of 20 points by the highly respected Gault Millau, an alternative to the Michelin guide. On Saturday, we explore nearby Bellinzona, a Unesco World Heritage site and capital of Ticino.
From hilltops loom three medieval castles erected to fortify the town against Milanese invaders. We stroll through the market eating our body weight in pungent cheese before climbing the hill to the biggest fortress, Castel- grande. Breathless, we hunker down in a traditional grotto restaurant and dine like kings on chestnut risotto and a syrupy ossobuco that feels like a big hug after our walk.
That evening, back in Ascona, I sit on the edge of the promenade, my feet dangling inches from the water.
Maggiore glows an electric blue in the dusk and the street lights of Italy wink from across the lake. But I’m more than happy right here in Switzerland.