Category Archives: Tourism

Bellinzona and Lugano – Swiss “Italian” beauties : A Photo Blog

Tourism, Travel, ,

After finishing our trip to Locarno, we arrived in Bellinzona. This town is the capital of Ticino, the Italian canton(state) of Switzerland. This small little town of 18,000 people is pretty charming, with its tree lined streets and the city center.

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The church is in the city center and is surrounded by restaurants, open-air cafes and shops.

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The tree leaves were turning yellow and it was great fun walking through the city.

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The most famous tourist attractions in Bellinzona are the Castles. Three castles – Castelgrande, Montebello, Sasso Corbaro – dot the landscape of the town and are part of the UNESCO World Heritage list. We decided to visit one of the castles, the Castelgrande.  The picture below is taken from this placem, and includes the other two castles.  

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Below is a picture from inside the Castelgrande.

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We finished our trip here and set off for our final destination of the day- Lugano. The trip to Lugano from Bellinzona takes about 30 minutes.  Lugano is close to the Italian border(Milan is less than hour from Lugano) and is situated on the banks of Lake Lugano. (Trivia – a Lake is called “See” in German, “Lac” in French and “Lago” in Italian). It is surrounded by several mountains, that provide great views of the town, the lake and the alpine scenaries. Boating in the lake is a popular activity here.

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 The Lugano cathedral is one of the most most famous landmarks.

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The train station is on a hill and we walked downhill towards the lake. On the way, we got another view of the cathedral.

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As we arrived in the city Plaza, we could see that the place was bustling with activity.  The sight of people playing chess in the Plaza was quite interesting.

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The view of the lake was awesome, despite the fact that it was cloudy. We walked around the lake enjoying the sites and sounds.

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Soon after, we were tired of walking and found some place to sit and enjoy the lake views.

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After enjoying the views, we had dinner and the famous Italian Gelatos before heading back to our homes. A nice journey with some good moments.

Will be back soon with my next trave”b”logue 🙂

My trip to Locarno – “Italian” Switzerland : a Photo blog

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As the Autumn was already underway, the temperature had started dropping and sunny days were becoming a rarity. The forecast for last weekend was not exactly great, with prediction of a cloudy Saturday. So,my friends and I decided to go to the warmer southern part of Switzerland. These places,Lugano and other towns nearby, are part of the canton Ticino, borders Italy and the climate has a Mediterranean influence.

We took off early Saturday morning and our train was a CIS Alpino train(jointly operated by the Railways of Switzerland and Italy). Since the train route cuts through Alps and has several tunnels & curves, the CIS Alpino trains are tilting trains. These trains are designed to counteract the centrifugal forces in curves and enhance passenger comfort.

During the journey, the train passes through the beautiful city of  Arth Goldau and also the famous Gotthard Rail Tunnel. This tunnel was completed in 1882 after 10 years of struggle. During the construction of the tunnel, several workers died due to construction accidents and also during a worker strike that was crushed by the Swiss army. This tunnel is 15 km long and was a breakthrough for the trans-Alps train traffic.

After 3 hrs of journey, we reached Bellinzona from where a train was ready for departure to Locarno. The journey time to Locarno from Bellinzona was about 30 minutes.

As we stepped out of the railway station, we got the first glimpse of Mediterranean ambience – Palm trees.

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The climate was not perfect and was quite cloudy. But the clouds could only partially take away the beauty of the town. The Lake Locarno was especially beautiful.   lu2

As we walked along the town, we came across some of the restaurants that serve Italian specialties – Pizzas and Gelatos(Ice creams). Here is a picture of a Pizzeria cum Gelateria.loc3

Other sights included flower sales on the roadside.

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Soon we reached the city square called “Piazza Grande”. It is here that the annual famous “Locarno International Film Festival” takes place. If you are here in August, you can get a glimpse of some of the famous film stars. The films are shown in cinemas during the day, but during the night, films are shown in open-air in this “Piazza Grande” on a giant screen.

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Pretty close to the Piazza are these old Castle remains.

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After roaming around the city, we headed back to lake. The tree leaves were changing colors and provided a great visual treat.

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Walking along the lakeside was a delight. If only the sun had come out for some time!!

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After having a coffee in one of the open-air restraunts, we arrived in the train station. We boarded the train for Bellinzona for our next leg of journey. We had heard that there are some great castles in Bellinzona and planned to spend some time there before proceeding to Lugano, another beautiful city.

The details of the trip to Lugano can be found here.

My visit to “The top of Swiss Alps”

Tourism, Travel, , , ,

As I checked the weather forecast last Thursday, I was delighted that after 2 weeks of bad weather, the Saturday promised to be a sunny day. This revived my “travel itch” and I discussed with friends as to where to go on that Saturday. We decided that we will go to Schilthorn, which is one of the mountain peaks in central Switzerland. But it turned out to be a totally different day than we had planned.

We planned to meet in Bern(the capital of Switzerland) and I left early in the morning and got a one day unlimited train travel pass(for 54 Swiss Francs = 54 USD) . As I boarded the train, I got the message that some of the friends didn’t really get the communication about our travel plans. So, there would be a delay of about a few hours from our original plan. Since I didn’t want to waste that much time waiting in a railway station, I felt that I could go a little further and come back before continuing our planned trip. So, I decided to go to Matterhorn, which is on the Italian border of Switzerland and is also one of the most popular Alps skiing resorts.

From Bern, I took a train to Brig,  from where there was  a mountain train to Zermatt, which is the base for tourists and skiers going to the different locations surrounding Matterhorn. As I arrived in Brig, there was a morning chill but the sun was already going up and I could see some snow covered mountains.

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When I came out of the main train station, I saw another station for mountain trains and a train waiting for departure for Visp and then onto Zermatt.  

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The one hour train journey was quite an exciting one and climbed close to 1000 meters – from 670 m above sea-level(asl) at Brig to 1604 m asl at Zermatt. This route is also used by the famous train “Glacier Express“, which travels from St.Mortiz in south-east Switzerland to Zermatt which is south-west, along the Alps. The Glacier express is also known as “The slowest express train in the world”.

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 When I reached Zermatt, the sun was already shining and the climate was quite pleasant. Zermatt is a beautiful little town and had some excellent views of the mountain. Zermatt

As I walked through the town towards the cable-car station, I got my first glimpse of the Matterhorn Peak. And what a stunning view it was!!

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From Zermatt, one could take another train to a peak called Gornergrat, and cable cars to 3 glaciers including “Matterhorn glacier paradise”. I chose to go to the glacier paradise and took the cable car. On the way to the top, I had to move twice to another cable car. These cars were taking me to the peaks that had an altitude of close to 4000 meters. From the cable car, I could see snow, and more snow.

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 So, after close to one hour from Zermatt, I reached the destination -“Matterhorn glacier paradise”. And paradise it was. It was all covered in snow. There were almost zero cloud, bright sun and the snow reflecting the sunlight. It was very windy though, and the temperature was about -10 deg C.

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On a clear day like this, one could see a lot of peaks with altitude above 4000 meters asl. And many of them are in Italy. The picture below shows the Italian peaks of the Alps.

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There was also the glacier. Could there be a more beautiful view than this?

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Skiers were having a fantastic time and there were loads of them, many from USA, Italy and UK.

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Here is a closer look at the skiers.

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On the way down, I could a get a great view of the majestic Matterhorn peak.

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So, after the unplanned visit to Matterhorn, I talked to my friends about our original plans. By this time, it was already close to 2 pm and it didn’t make sense to go to Schilthorn. So, we decided to postpone it for later and to meet at a place called Spiez. As I arrived there and went out of the railway station, I was swept aside by the beauty of this small town along the Lake Thuner. 

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 As one of my German friends told me, Spiez has a special place in the heart of Germans. The reason was that their football team was accomodated in Spiez during the 1954 World Cup and this team went on to win that year’s Football World Cup, held in Switzerland.

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Soon after, my friends arrived and we all spent some time in Spiez before leaving for our homes.

The beautiful day was yielding to night, but I am sure I will go back to Matterhorn again.

Switzerland’s ‘Watch Valley’

Tourism, , ,

The first thing that comes to our mind when we talk about the Hi-tech industry in US is – “Silicon Valley”.  Switzerland has something similar:it has the “Watch Valley”. It is quite quite easy to understand why. Swiss watches are popular all over the world and the Swiss watch and clock industry is the country’s third largest exporter(after machine and chemical industries). Some of world’s top  watch  brands like Rolex,Tissot, Swatch, Omega and Rado (to name a few) are from Switzerland. Swiss watches come in different sizes and catering to different ec3008469318_22afae0001onomic groups, with watches as inexpensive as a few tens of francs to some costing several millions(with gold and precious stones in them).

According to the “Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry”, there are about 600 watch making companies in Switzerland(down from 1600 in 1970) with the average number of employees per company at about 70. Most of these  companies are located in the “Watch Valley”, the geographical region along the Jura mountains in the western region bordering France. This covers a distance of about 200 miles from Geneva to Basel and has mountains, valleys and 3 major lakes – Lake Bienne, Lake Neuchatel,Lake Leman.

One fascinating piece of history is that the Swiss watch industry has it’s origins in the Christian Protestant reformist movement. In the  16th century, John Calvin and Martin Luther broke from the Roman Catholic Church and formed the Protestant movements. Martin Luther was based in Germany whereas Calvin was based in Geneva,Switzerland. Calvin’s theological system was called Calvinism and he banned the wearing of Jewellery. This forced the goldsmiths and other jewellers of Geneva to turn to watchmaking. Slowly, this industry grew and expanded into the Jura mountain region to become what is now known as the “Watch Valley”.

In the 1970’s, the Swiss watch industry went through a crisis following the invention of the quartz technology. This crisis resulted in the reduction in the size of the industry, but it survived and came out stronger. The industry adopted newer technologies and is now the leading player in the global watch industry, with exports worth 17 billion CHF in 2008.

Switzerland Tourism has recognized the “Watch Valley” as an official destination and UNESCO has recognised two towns – Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds” as World Heritage sites. So, when you plan to visit Switzerland, check out the “Watch Valley” as well. And don’t forget to bring a French dictionary/translator with you(this is the French speaking part of Switzerland).

More information can be found below.

Watch Valley –   www.watchvalley.ch/e/home

Federation of Swiss Watch Industry – www.fhs.ch/en/

Image Credit : char1iej