March 28 - Trivia question, hike to Pugerna

 View of Lugano from Campione d'Italia

This morning Rick and I took a bus from downtown Lugano to across the lake. Now, here is a great trivia question: What Italian town, which is 100% part of Italy, is found entirely inside the borders of Switzerland? It is Campione d'Italia, right across from Lugano. It's a long story but over hundreds of years of borders, things ended up as they are today. The town is along the lake and the land that is part of Italy extends up the side of the mountain a little. Then, the rest of the face of the mountain belongs to Switzerland, and then at the very top is the regular border of Italy. 

So we began our hike at the lake in Campione d'Italia. We really didn't know where we were going, but saw a "sentiero" (path) sign to somewhere called Pugerna. Through Campione d'Italia the path was a series of steps - up, up, up and up some more! Then a path began in the woods along the mountainside. 

 As we hiked upwards, I found this sign showing the border. We were back in Switzerland! (Svizzera in Italian)

 We finally reached a the town of Pugerna! And what a beautiful view! During the hike we really didn't know what to expect, and if there was even anything in Pugerna. After all, sometimes the name can mean just a farm or meadow. 

 Here is one of the old wash basins in the town. 

 Here is a view from the town looking south down the lake. 

And here is a cute story. In the old center of town we were walking around exploring. There happened to be an elderly man sitting on his porch and we didn't see him at first. When Rick saw him he said "Buon Giorno!" A small conversation began and then his wife came out. She was so sweet and they told us they have lived up there all their lives. I asked her about our plans to get back to Campione d'Italia - we saw a road there that went down to a little town along the lake called Caprino. We were hoping we could walk down there and then walk along the lake back to Campione. 

Well, good think we asked her!!! She said the road ends in Caprino and that there is no path to Campione - the cliffs prevent a path along the lake. And at this time of year there was no boat from Caprino to Lugano. I was a little nervous about going back the way we came, as we had climbed uphill and many areas were rocky. Uphill is one thing, but downhill there is more of a chance of slipping. I said I wished I had brought my hiking poles. 

So this sweet old woman says "I think I have a hiking stick somewhere. You can take it and then just leave it at the first house when you arrive back at Campione." She went to look for it but came back empty handed. Some other visitor must have taken it. But it was so sweet that she even offered it to me! 

 A little restaurant in Pugerna - we had brought sandwiches - if we had only known! It would have been nice to have lunch there. It's called Ristorante Grütli. We did have ice cream though! 

So I had to face the fact that we had to walk back the way we came.  But what if we had walked all the way down to Caprino! We would have had to hike back up and then down to Campione to get home - oh I can't imagine! I asked where the road coming into Pugerna came from - couldn't we take that road back? Yes, but it doesn't go down to Campione - it's a high road in the Swiss territory and goes to the town of Arogno, on the other side of the mountain, where we could get a bus. But this was a far walk so we walked back the way we came. 

This part of the path was easy, but a very sheer cliff! 

This part was steep!

 We actually got all the way down much faster than I expected, and it wasn't so bad.  It had taken us 1 hour to hike up, but only 35 minutes to hike back down. Here is our view as we waited for the bus. I love the reflection of the clouds in the lake! 

On the bus ride home, I snapped this picture to show where we had hiked. Right in the center of the picture, on the mountainside, there is a small group of homes along the lake, Caprino, then another group a bit uphill and to the right. Then there is a 3rd group of homes and meadows uphill and right of the 2nd. That is where we were, although we walked there from Campione, which is not in the picture. It's along the lake off the photo on the right. 
We were really exhausted after this!