City : Lugano

With some 100,000 inhabitants in the Greater Lugano area, Lugano, home of well-known stucco-workers, is the major city in the canton Ticino. Here art and culture are heavily inspired by Switzerland’s close Southern neighbor. Italian influence also becomes evident in the official language of the region, which is Italian and spoken by 84% of the population. Principal attractions have always been the extremely mild climate, delightful scenery, luxuriant vegetation, the good bathing facilities and romantic walks and rides. The Lugano Lake region is quite exceptional in enabling visitors to combine professional activities with leisure time. In the last few years Lugano has developed rapidly, becoming an international financial and conference center and one of Switzerland’s foremost cultural attractions.

Boat trips are very recommended for a overall impression of the lake and its surrounding mountains as well as for daily excursions. There are so many picturesque lakeside villages, built at the steep mountain slopes offering delightful surprises round every corner.

South of Lugano, the resort of Melide is renowned as the site of Swissminiatur, a scale model reproduction of the most important sites in Switzerland.

This unspoiled village at the foot of Monte Bre is a community of narrow streets, inaccessible to cars, with good restaurants and very close to the Italian border.

Campione is a typical Italian enclave situated on the Lugano lake, completely surrounded by Swiss territory. It is well-known for its casino and the « Madonna dei Ghirli » (swallows) built in the 9th century.

The funicular in Lugano-Paradiso takes you to this 2995 feet/ 912 m high mountain within 15 minutes. From the summit you can enjoy a lovely view over Lugano, the lake and many different mountains.

The aim of the Galleria Baumgartner is to preserve private collections of model railways, plus other types of models. They campaign to promote the building of model railways as an excellent hobby for both children and adults, and to encourage this, they also organise courses, seminars and auctions. The museum houses a permanent exhibition as well as new ideas and inventions by factories and engineers of model railways and accessories. Also housed in the museum are small model cars in various sizes, replicas of Märklin-models, the collection of Arnaldo Pocher, models of old sailing and steam boats as well as models of the modern motor boats of the Lake Lugano Shipping Company. Visitors are actively involved – they can bring their own trains with them and use the tracks (various gauges available) where compatible. The Galleria Baumgartner also exhibits loaned or donated old toys and works with model railway engineers, institutions, commercial and transportation companies and the Swiss Railway and Shipping Company, as well as with other exhibitors such as museums, etc.

The Alprose chocolate museum in Caslano presents the world of chocolate from the origins to this day.

Your visit at the museum ends in the « Nostalgia » shop, where you can taste the rich variety of Alprose products just as you like and certainly buy some of this delicious chocolate at attractive price.