The Lugano area now has free walking tours - usually somewhere in the downtown area. Last year we did several of these tours which were very interesting. You can pick up a brochure of Guided Excursions at the Lugano Tourist office by the Burger King.
There is another tour of the small town of Sessa, which is close to the Italian border, between Ponte Tresa and Luino, Italy. There are 650 inhabitants. Last year we tried to take this tour, which is by reservation only and only on Tuesdays. (phone number for reservation: +41 (0)91 608 22 85). It rained every Tuesday during our 3 month stay and we never did the tour! But yesterday we finally did!!!
To arrive in Sessa, we took the train to Ponte Tresa, where we got the bus to Sessa. We met the guide, Lindo, in the piazza in Sessa, along with a family from the Swiss German area. Lindo had been the mayor of this town for 20 years. He did the tour in German and English. This was great for me as I could practice listening in German (and I understood well! the guide spoke clearly).
Here is where we began the tour, in the piazza. A local woman had brought her produce to set out to sell. I noticed she put the lettuce in the fountain. A great way to keep it fresh! That is also some long squash hanging from the spouts.
There was also a sign in the piazza announcing "Polenta for everyone! Every Tuesday, 2 francs, beginning at 11:30am"
The polenta is in the back of this picture - where the man is and the table with the white tablecloth. They also had music playing all morning.
Many of the old buildings are 3 stories tall. The arched doors on the main floor were for the animals. The second floor was the home, and had balconies with an arcade covering, then the 3rd floor was often open, where they hung things like corn and tobacco to dry.
This building was originally also a court. This area of Ticino was governed by two other cantons in Switzerland - their canton symbols displayed on this several hundred year old fresco. We all got to walk up to this second floor - right on to someone's balcony!
This is a courtyard of another home - actually, the childhood home of our friend Roberto! He worked with Rick 10 years ago when we lived here. And by chance a woman came out of the house - it was Roberto's sister!
Opposite the house in the courtyard was this little covered outside area. Roberto's sister said it used to house the cows and rabbits, but they made an outside space to eat with a wood burning fireplace for pizza! Looks cozy and fun to me!
I took a panoramic in the courtyard (which the sun overwhelmed a bit). Next to the little outside eating area, there was another large covered area with a balcony over it. The other apartments were using this outdoor space.
The fun thing about having a guide is that he had the key to a number of doors! Behind an old door on a very old street, we walked through a cobblestone hallway to an open area with this HUGE wooden press. It was incredibly massive. At first thought is that they were using it for wine, but actually, they pressed apples for the juice, and also nuts for the oil.
Here you can see the "screw" on the left, and how massive this log is!
Here is the date on the press - - 1407!!!
We were showed the incredible, carved, wooden alter in the local church. They had to restore it when they found it was caving in on itself. There were worms eating the wood. The church was sealed and fumigated for 6 months and then it was all painstaking restored. I think it is from the late 1500's.
Another thing we did was visit the little museum dedicated to the local mine. For about 300 years there was a gold mine above the town. It did not contain veins of gold, rather it was extracted using chemicals and was a very difficult process. It is no longer in use.
Our tour went from 10am to about 12:30. We wanted to try some of the polenta, but as the guide said, "polenta just by itself is kind of bland". We really needed to eat, and small restaurants usually only serve from 12:00 to 1pm. Pay attention to that - you could be out of luck if you need to eat! It was now about 12:45 and we thought we better go to the restaurant first, which was located just outside the courtyard of Roberto's house. The waitress didn't know if there was enough left to eat. A local customer ran out the door to go to the piazza to see if there was polenta left - there was. The waitress then gave us two ceramic bowls and told us to go fill them with polenta!
We are getting our bowls filled with polenta! 2 francs.
As you can see, the polenta is cooked in big pots, often over a fire. That's why it's not cooked in the restaurant!
Heading back to the restaurant with our bowls of polenta! Once back, the waitress took them in the back and brought them out with chicken and broth on top. Yum! It was like a chicken soup poured on top, with the chicken being whole pieces. It was really good, and so fun to be there and listen to all the local men who had gathered to eat. These are the precious moments of traveling - highly recommended! (the chicken part of the meal cost 12 francs, which is very reasonable for Switzerland).
Sessa is actually along a higher valley. There is a wide, flat area, and we walked along the road all the way to the Italian border. On the way back, we followed a path that was leading back to Sessa. This path followed the mountainside just up a bit. As I've mentioned before, you're never alone on Swiss hiking paths. Here, an entire school group passed us by! And one poor girl was doing this hike using crutches!!!!
A view of Sessa as we hiked back (it's the town where you see the church steeple).
Our path led us through someone's yard and vineyard. Another nice thing about Swiss trails - people's property is not all fenced off and you are free to walk through!
View looking west from our trail. The tallest snowcapped mountain in the distance is Monte Rosa.
A panoramic from the vineyards. Merlot is the wine produced in Ticino.
As the path led us through a little village, Rick refreshes himself with a local fountain - often found in many small villages.
And a final funny story... Rick and I were waiting for the bus back to Ponte Tresa - in the same spot where he dropped us off. We had about 6 minutes to wait. We were walking down the street looking around while waiting when we saw the bus come - early. We decided to scurry back, even though the bus would wait there until its departure time. We got on the bus, and the driver said something about the fact that we could get on now or when he comes back. Hmmm, wasn't sure what he meant, so we got on. He left immediately.
Well, he was actually late, and then continued to the towns of Monteggio and Termine (right on the Italian border). He then looped around back a different way and stopped back in Sessa. Oh, that's what he meant! The reason for this is that the bus can't go through Sessa because the street is too narrow. The bus comes from the main road into town, turns around, goes back to the main road and finishes the route and comes back and does the same thing. Now, if we had missed this bus - seeing him drive away, we would have thought we missed it and I'm sure we would have left the bus stop for the hour until the next bus - when he was really coming back in a few minutes!
But we were glad we continued to Monteggio - that was an exciting ride up and through that town! Switzerland...always full of surprises!
No comments:
Post a Comment