Wonderful views, lakes, rivers, delicious food and high service!
Mama came to visit and it is a must to entertain her in a best way, cause so much love I have for her :) No doubts, I wanted to show her Italian part of Switzerland.
I checked for a sunny weather and booked a hotel in Locarno from Friday to Saturday last week. Iphone weather app does not always provide with the accurate forecasts, so it is better to use local forecasts channels.
Driving from Arbon where I live, (a city apr. 10 min. drive from St. Gallen) in a direction of Tessin is such an experience. Magnificent views at the mountains, waterfalls, bridges, castles and green nature is all around. You drive about 250 km. enjoying good motorway and coffee from gasoline stations. It takes around 2-3 hours to get there.
A hotel la Palma au Lac welcomed us friendly with a choice of beverages such as white wine, prosecco, juices etc. They let us in to our room far earlier than check-in time, which was nice and unusual, right? You can feel that the hotel is long time in a service business and staff knows what to do to make guests feel that they are wanted, creating stress free experience for them. Here is the link for the hotel: https://booki.ng/2IuM7YN
This one is taken from the hotel page
An audience which visits Tessin as tourists usually expects high quality standards in hospitality and restaurants. It makes places to compete with each other and try be their best from season to season. This is a reason, why in most of the restaurants the you will not find pre-cooked stuff, but fresh and tasty in Italian style.
Risotto with mushrooms. Yamy!
One of the highlights in Locarno is a church Madonna del Sasso in Orselina, which is located above the city. It is easy to get there by a little tram which departs from the city centre and takes you there for 10 min. Walking around and inside of the Church takes you about one hour to explore and take pictures. Then, there is a little restaurant with an incredible view at the lake, where you can eat and drink.
Madonna del Sasso
If anybody wants shopping and pay at least 30% more, you can do that too. I tried trousers in Massimo Dutti for 169 CHF and bought them for 70 Euro next day in Konstanz (Germany). Switzerland has has crazy prices, especially for a person like me, who gets the salary from Kazakhstan :D, so it makes me and a lot of other people to shop mostly in neighbor countries around the corner like Germany or Austria.
Information for younger people. Near Locarno, there is an amazing, magical, unique and unforgettable place called Verzasca Valley. It's a river where you can swim, dive from up to 15 meters in to cold, mountain water and warm up on huge and sun heated stones. My husband and I visit this place every year during summer.
So, next day after the breakfast we took off to Lugano, 40 km. drive from Lucarno.
Mama is chilling
We have spent a day there and were lucky to visit museum where the Picasso pictures were presented. Had a wonderful walk across the lake later, stopping by for coffees. After, having our late lunch, we started our way back to Arbon.
(Lunch or dinner in every restaurant only with main course and drinks: 60-70CHF for two)
To sum up, we had unforgettable two sunny days of girls talking, quality time together and enjoying the beauty of life.
Cheers!
Katya