Ticino

Ticino gives Switzerland a southern climate and an Italian way of life without crossing a border: lake promenades, grotti in the chestnut woods and Merlot from the hillsides. Since the opening of the Gotthard and Ceneri base tunnels, Lugano is a little under two hours by direct train from Zurich.

Lugano is the canton’s largest city, set on a bay of Lake Lugano between the two peaks of Monte San Salvatore and Monte Brè, each with its own funicular. Its arcaded old town, the lakeside Parco Ciani and the LAC cultural centre face the water, and boats run to the fishing village of Gandria and to Morcote. Bellinzona, the capital, keeps three medieval castles inscribed by UNESCO in 2000.

On Lake Maggiore, Locarno and Ascona share the mildest shore in Switzerland. Locarno’s Piazza Grande is the open-air heart of its film festival; Ascona has a lakefront of pastel houses and, above it, Monte Verità, where artists and reformers gathered in the early twentieth century. The botanical garden of the Brissago Islands lies offshore, and behind the lake the Valle Verzasca and Valle Maggia run north between granite walls, with stone villages and green water.

Spring comes earliest here, with camellias, magnolias and azaleas flowering on the lake shores from March. Summer brings swimming in the lakes and rivers, JazzAscona in late June and early July, and the Locarno Film Festival in August, when thousands watch the evening screenings under the sky of the Piazza Grande.

Autumn is the season of the grape harvest and of chestnuts, with long warm days and the woods turning copper above the lakes. Winter is quiet and often sunny; Lugano stays open all year, but several of the lake resorts of Ascona and Locarno close from late October until spring, so the season for Lake Maggiore runs essentially from Easter to October.

In Lugano, the Hotel Splendide Royal stands on the lakefront promenade close to the centre, with I Due Sud among its restaurants, and the Grand Hotel Villa Castagnola, receiving guests since 1885, lies in its own subtropical park on the shore at Castagnola. In Ascona, the Hotel Eden Roc sits directly on Lake Maggiore, and the Castello del Sole Beach Resort & SPA occupies a 140-hectare estate at the mouth of the Maggia, with its own vineyards and winery.

LVXE books the Splendide Royal, the Eden Roc and the Castello del Sole through LHW VITA — at the official hotel rate, with the privileges the programme attaches to the stay. For Villa Castagnola, LVXE advises on the stay and arranges it directly with the hotel. The Castello del Sole closes for the winter, and from late October to late March the Eden Roc receives its winter guests at the smaller Eden Roc Marina; August, the month of the film festival, is the most sought-after time on Lake Maggiore.