Ticino

South of the Gotthard

Ticino is Switzerland’s southernmost canton and its only one where Italian is the sole official language, a product of geography as much as history: the watershed at the Gotthard and San Bernardino passes marks a climatic border, and everything south of it drains toward the Po and the Mediterranean rather than the Rhine. Access from the rest of Switzerland has historically meant crossing that watershed, at the Gotthard Pass (2,106m, between Andermatt and Airolo) or the San Bernardino Pass (2,066m, between Thusis and Bellinzona). Since 2016 the Gotthard Base Tunnel, 57km long and the longest railway tunnel in the world, has carried the main line under rather than over the mountain, cutting the rail journey from central Switzerland to a little over two hours.

Bellinzona and the lakes

Bellinzona, the cantonal capital, sits where the passes funnel into the Ticino valley, and its Three Castles, Castelgrande, Montebello and Sasso Corbaro, built to control exactly that chokepoint, have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000. South of Bellinzona the Alps lose height quickly, and the canton’s southern tip, Sottoceneri, is given over to Lake Lugano and part of Lake Maggiore, both shared with Italy. Lugano and Locarno, the two lakeside towns, have more the feel of northern Italy than of the rest of Switzerland, in architecture, food and climate alike, and Monte San Salvatore, reached from Lugano by a funicular running since 1890, gives a view over the lake, the town, and the Italian exclave of Campione on the far shore.

Walking

The mix of altitude and latitude makes for unusually varied walking within a short distance. The Verzasca valley, north of Locarno, drops from chestnut forest and granite gorges, the Ponte dei Salti stone bridge at Lavertezzo is the valley’s best-known spot, down to the lake, while the Centovalli railway carries walkers from Locarno toward the Italian border through a landscape more Ligurian than Alpine. Higher routes exist too, particularly around Monte Generoso (1,701m) on the Italian border, but Ticino’s distinction is a season that runs longer than the rest of Switzerland’s: the lower, southern parts stay walkable well outside the June-to-September window that governs the high Alps, since much of the terrain here never depends on snow clearing in the first place.