May 14 - hike high up in Rasa, only car-free town in Ticino

Today we drove to the Centovalli (valley called the One Hundred Valleys). Near the town of Intragna there is a cable car, called funivia, which goes to the town of Rasa, which sits atop a mountain ledge. It is totally invisible from the main road below, and might I say that this main road is VERY narrow and winding! I wrote about it as we drove it back from our trip to France.

 View from the cableway as we swung across the valley.

 It was really awesome when we arrived at the top in Rasa! There are no roads to this town, yet it is quite large, even with an inn and a couple restaurants.

 Rasa, Switzerland

 View from Rasa looking northwest. What I find funny is that even up here, where there are no roads, there is a fire hydrant! 

 This is where the town made their bread in the oven behind me. 

 View of Rasa and how it sits high up on this ledge. 

 After exploring the town, we set out in the direction of Vecchia Terra - Old Ground. We had been told that is was a very old abandoned village which was being restored by several organizations. We hiked through the mountain forest continually going down down the back side of the ledge Rasa sits on. 

 Intersection of two routes through the mountain

 Rarely are we disappointed, but we were when we arrived at Vecchia Terra. The entire area was still a work zone and thus off limits for us to explore. I'm sure it will be great in the future!

Now, there are also no roads to Vecchia Terra. I wonder how they got this big crane up here! Probably by helicopter. 

 So we hiked back up to Rasa and headed to an open meadow east above the town. Some other hikers took our picture. :-)

 What a wonderful viewpoint looking back down on the town! We found a great spot to lay out picnic sheet and enjoyed delicious sandwiches Rick made.

 Our picnic spot!

 After lunch we noticed the path going up into the woods behind us so we decided to try that route. It was a much easier path which leveled out and was smooth for a long part of the way.

I love being surprised by a beautiful open meadow, with little stone mountain houses scattered around. This little grouping of houses was called Monti. There were even mountain bikers coming down this path! In general it was easy, but there are still lots of stone steps - how do they do it! See them coming in the distance?

 There was a sign for an area called Termine, and a number of hikers were doing that loop. We headed in that direction from Monti - the sign said 20 minutes, but it always takes us twice as long as the sign says, so we hiked for a bit but thought it best to head back to Rasa. Here is another view of Monti from the other side. 

 On the way back Rick and I began talking to an elderly couple from Lucern. It's fun to chat with others when you're way up in these little corners of the mountains.

 Just another great view on our way back down. 

 This meadow is steep!!

 The church in Rasa as we were about to take the cableway back down. 

Down below Rasa, deep in the valley, there is a dam. We walked down to the lake it formed. You can see the road and train bridge over the waterfall.