Bellinzona

Getting out of Switzerland was never going to be easy. While we were keen to avoid the sky high prices and incessant church bell tolling of this small nation, it is also surrounded by some of the world’s highest mountain ranges. Lucky for us we found a tunnel marked on the map heading direct into Italy. TomTom (sat nav) seemed to think that was the way out, but it didn’t look quite like any of the other tunnels we’d driven through, and we weren’t quite sure where we were going. As it turned out we drove straight onto a train in Wickse and plunged 20 km direct through the Alps via the Simplon Tunnel.

The Simplon Tunnel

10 minutes later, we landed in Italy. From there we headed through the extreme northern corner of Lombardy and back into Switzerland, and on to Bellinzona, nestled in the Italian speaking Swiss region of Ticino.

Bellinzona

Bellinzona lies at the head of a valley, bordering the Swiss-Italian lakes Maggiore and Lugano. Throughout history, whoever controlled this valley also controlled access to the Alps via the legendary St Gottard pass, and so the early Bellinzonese had built three strong defensive castles and city gates right at the narrowest point, earning it UNESCO Heritage status. After the last couple of weeks hanging out in modern day ski resorts of the French and German speaking valleys of Switzerland, we were more than keen on a little history, Italian style.

Walking the ramparts of Castelgrande

Castelgrande

The character of this area of Switzerland really did change so much and it was very much enhanced by the Italian influence, except that every thing ran like clock work, but not exactly cuckoo… It was especially weird to see various varieties of palm trees sprouting against the snowy mountainous backdrops, with the city itself spread between the three immaculately restored castles. We spent the next day reading up on the history and walking around the town and castles. Fantastic weather and we had a great time relaxing off-piste.