With a clear day in the forecast, we rented a Smart car at the last minute and drove to Sonogno, Switzerland. It's a charming little village deep in the Verzasca Valley, north of Locarno in Ticino. Our plans are to hike up to an old, stone village called Püschen Negro. It's normally cooler back in this valley, but it was such a sunny day with no wind. The air in the valley heats up like the inside of a locked car on a summer day!
The quaint town of Sonogno, deep in the Verzasca Valley
The town oven, which one can find in a number of old towns.
The first part of the hike leads us uphill on an asphalt path, as there are some homes and a restaurant along the way. This house was built using this huge fallen rock as one of the walls!
A great, refreshing waterfall along the way. Notice the guy in red on the bridge across the waterfall.
Rick enjoying the waterfall
Looking up into the valley where we are headed.
The beautiful valley along the way.
This view gives us our first good glimpse of Püschen Negro. See that meadow up the mountainside in the center of the picture? There is a cluster of houses there!
Here I zoom in so you can see the little "village" up the mountainside.
Ten years ago when we lived in Switzerland, I spotted this group of houses and I always wanted to hike up there. I'm now checking this one off my bucket list!
Always old, stone houses along the way.
Last home before we head up a steeper trail. Notice how this house has been refurbished and also uses solar power. It's usually their only power.
Looking back down into the valley - a group of goats.
We did not expect such hot weather! Plus, it's early spring here and there is hardly any shade from trees. We stop often to rest - it's tough for me to hike up!
Rick keeping cool!
We are still heading up. According to this hiking trail sign, it's 1 hour 15 minutes to go back to Sonogno - downhill.
We are finally here! The "Machine" on the right is a hand cranked cable in order to bring goods up and down the mountainside. There is no road, so if you have a mountain house here, you need to walk up, have someone crank you up in the basket, or take a helicopter.
Enjoying our first bench since we started the steep incline (that is unusual, as there are almost always benches along hiking paths.)
We began our hike back down in the grassy area on the left side of the zig zag of the valley.
It took us almost 3 hours to hike up! But we are not fast (remember, we are from FLAT Chicago!) and we also stopped to catch our breath and enjoy the views.
There were a few houses that have been somewhat renovated and we can tell that people use them as their mountain homes, but most were abandoned and many falling apart. Still, there was a little church there and at one time in the past, this was a little community! These people were tough!
This is a great example of how they built their houses. The original houses are just rocks put together like a puzzle. Even the insides were left just a puzzle of rocks - no inner wall. Here you also see some stairs on the outside of the house to go upstairs - big slabs of granite or other stone sticking out! This is common to see - even inside homes that have been completely renovated in the Lugano area. The roofs are also made of stones overlapping each other. They obviously had a great supply of stones!
The house on the left has been fixed up and a mortar put between the rocks.
The building in the center is the little church with a stone courtyard.
Usually these towns would have a sort of stone "sidewalk", but not this one. The hiking path, which continued past the town and to a pass over the mountain, was the only sort of sidewalk. It was tricky getting around to see the area.
Here, Rick is looking in one of the many barn-like buildings. The goats must be hanging around here a lot, as there were piles of goat pooh near the barns!
Inside the little church in this far-away place.
In many communities, there are little mountain churches, and there are still services in these churches for special occasions and sometimes even once a month.
Our view from the terrace of the church, where we enjoyed our lunch.
A panoramic from our lunch post.
We hiked from Sonogno at 918 meters (3011 feet) to Püschen Negro at 1343 meters (4406 feet)
Ok, it might not seem like much, but we're not young, and grew up in flat Illinois!
In front of this house, a little stream was running partially underground, and partially above. Here it formed a little "grotto" with dripping water. We were surprised that we did not find any continually running water fountain here, which is very common in Switzerland as there is fresh mountain water everywhere. Our water bottles were almost empty and no place to refill! If this water was channeled into a fountain, we would have used it, but I wasn't sure about holding my bottle of water under the grass canopy in this case! Better to be safe.
Some areas still had puddles, as the snow just recently melted. Here, a common sight in mountain puddles of melted snow - not yet hatched tadpoles! This place will be swarming with frogs soon!
As the path leads out of the village, wooden planks were put in place because it is a very wet area. This is where we found the tadpole eggs.
We are not continuing past the village, the path go on - for those more experienced. It goes down to the bridge in the middle of the picture, and wiggles straight ahead from that - see the thin, green wiggly line? Up and around the bend to the left (although up MUCH higher) is the mountain pass.
You can see how our path was long zig-zag up the mountain. You can actually see this zig zag on google earth. Type in Püschen Negro, Switzerland, zoom in and you will see it!
How do we know the way? In certain areas it can be confusing which way to go. Most paths have a white-red-white "flag" painted on trees or rocks to show you the way.
As we are reaching part of the river, Rick spots a mountain goat - at the bottom of the path, with a baby on the left next to the water. We are hesitant to go down the path - especially because there is a baby involved!
We wait while another adult joins the first at the bottom of the path.
They move off to the side and we continue down the zig zag. Once we've passed, the whole group continues on their way up the path we just left! How polite!
We are headed back to Sonogno - but here I look back to see where we were! Teeny tiny group of houses just above the roofs of these closer stone homes.
Looking back again. And the sun always changes the look - can't help taking pictures!
A zoom-in again of where we were. I'm very proud of myself!
Our feet are so tired and hot. We put them in the river to cool off. OH, it's SO cold! We manage to keep them in the water no more than 3 seconds at a time.
Ahhhh!
The church tower back in Sonogno. We enjoyed some ice cream - which was really needed!!
We left Sonogno, but made a quick stop in Corippo, also in the Valley Verzasca. It's a must see town, as it is part of Swiss heritage and can't be altered. Here one has a true view of life in the mountains from years ago. We've been here before and the sun was setting behind the mountains, so it was just a quick stop.
Corippo
House in Corippo. Many are renovated and can be rented for vacation. There are more little homes up the steep hill behind these homes.
