Locarno

"Sorry about the weather," said the agent who printed up the itinerary for our train trip to Locarno.  It was raining when we left the Base, but we hoped for warmer temperatures in the balmy, subtropical corner of Italian-speaking Switzerland.  The rain made it hard to take pictures from the train, but we persisted; the journey took about four hours each way.  At the halfway point, we were to change trains in Domodossola, a small town that is actually in Italy. 

"There's absolutely nothing at this station,"

said the same train agent.  He was right.All we had time for was to board the next train, but I overheard a group of people who had longer to wait. "Let's have hot chocolate," the woman said. "Italian hot chocolate!" 


The new train was a panoramic train with extra high windows; it wended its way slowly through the mountain passes leaving plenty of time to admire the changing foliage. The rain slowed down, and vineyards, rivers, and mountain scenery reminded us of beautiful British Columbia. 

Sometimes we could see the highway below us

At the little stazione along the way, I would quickly snap a picture while the conductor had the door open to peer out, check for passengers, and blow his whistle; all in the space of about ten seconds.

This was the first station back on the Swiss side:

At Locarno, we looked around for the funicolare to take us up 355 metres to Orselina; our destination was a church called Madonna del Sasso.  In 1480, the Virgin had appeared to a monk on retreat on the mountain. The rain had tapered off, and we were hopeful it would stop completely.

Locarno is on Lake Maggiore, most of which extends down into Italy.  The tops of the mountains surrounding it were still covered by low-hanging clouds.

Several tiny chapels had groups of carved wooden figures; we liked this one of Jesus with his disciples at the Last Supper.

Here's a picture of the ornate baroque ceiling of the church itself.  My pictures of the interior of the church don't do it justice. The way down consisted of many steps; pilgrims of old followed this path on their way up the hill. At the bottom, we found a museum but didn't venture farther than these archways in the courtyard.

 

uPalm trees grew in this balmy climate, and from the train we even saw trees laden with oranges.  I wondered if they were the bitter, ornamental kind, because no one seemed to be picking them.  We wandered around the Piazza Grande, and had a thin crusted pizza, just to say we did.  I hadn't had pizza for at least four months, but it was disappointing.  We figured out the topping choices by deciphering both the Italian and German words on the menu.  No French on that side of the menu, let alone English!  When we finally neared Lausanne on our way home, what a relief to hear the French language being spoken again! It's amazing how our ears can now easily recognize announcements of the next station, or which track our connecting train leaves from.

On the way home, all too soon, the rain had completely stopped, and we snapped a few more vistas in the remaining daylight. This was a reservoir.

Some mountains on the way home, which weren't visible before, had snow on their peaks, but the biggest surprise was waiting at Chalet-a-Gobet.  Oh, now we feel right at home!  Terry is not impressed!

The leaves aren't off the trees yet!  We chose to get a ride in a van the next morning to the English-French church, rather than walking for 25 minutes in the blowing snow to the French church.  The day's high in Locarno was 15 degrees Celcius; now we're around  0 Celcius.  I wonder if it will last?

 

 

 

 

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