Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: Tasmanian Devils (2010)
Lakeside drive and a hundred valleys
Monday dawned as another bright and sunny day - or at least, it already had by the time that I surfaced. I also dared to believe that perhaps conditions were a little more placid than before, with less of a wind blowing down the lake. After allowing my rental car to make Sunday a day of rest, the plan was for it to get back to work today. I intended to visit Locarno, in the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino, driving up on the winding lakeside road and returning via an even more tortuous mountain route. First, I had the usual satisfying hotel breakfast. Once on the road, I proceeded via Baveno and Verbania, then up the western shore of Lake Maggiore towards Switzerland, occasionally pulling over when a safe opportunity presented itself in order to take in the views.
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I soon reached the border village of Piaggio di Valmara and slipped effortlessly into Switzerland, noticing an immediate improvement in the road as I did so. In what seemed like no time at all, I was making my way through the streets of Locarno towards the city centre. |
Locarno
I soon found my way to a convenient underground car park - I love how the Swiss manage to tuck these things away out of sight - and temporarily abandoned the car in favour of exploration on foot. I soon found my bearings, which is perhaps not surprising given that it had only been seven years since my one previous visit. It was pleasant strolling along the esplanade in the warm midday sun and it didn't take long to work up an appetite for an open-air lunch on the terrace of the Radisson hotel.
Afterwards, I decided that I had time to try out the funicular that I'd spotted shortly after leaving the car and which I realised would be a new one for me. I'd somehow managed to miss it in 2003. The journey up to Orselina was swift and efficient, in typical Swiss fashion, and I was soon enjoying the spectacular views down to Locarno and, much closer, of the Madonna del Sasso abbey sitting precariously and yet sedately above it all. Eventually I made my way across to the abbey, only to find that most of it was closed for restoration work.
Once back in Locarno itself, I had a brief walk around the old town area before returning to the car.
Centovalli route
I'd had one previous experience of
the so-called Centovalli route from
Locarno
(CH) to Domodossola (I). As part of a two-week grand tour of
Switzerland in 2003 by public transport, I travelled the full length
of the narrow-gauge railway, surely one of the most low-key
international train journeys in Europe yet at the same time one of
the most spectacular. The
little trains on the Centovalli line are operated by a
company that rejoices in the name of Regional Railways and Bus Lines
of Ticino. In Italian, that's Ferrovie
Autolinee Regionali Ticinesi, and both the trains and the
local buses in Locarno carry the unfortunate acronym as a fleetname.
But today's re-run of the route was to be by car, so there were no
schoolboy sniggers this time around. Well, maybe one wry grin.
I found the way out of town easily enough and, as the road climbed relentlessly, it all started to get decidedly challenging from a driving point of view: twists and turns, single lane stretches, tight squeezes, blind bends and steep gradients, some requiring first gear - yikes! I have rarely been so relieved to be driving a small car. It certainly made for an interesting new perspective compared to my train journey seven years previously, but the disadvantage this time was that my eyes were, out of absolute necessity, glued to the road and there were few opportunities to stop safely for a closer look at the views. I do have some photos from one stop that I made not long after being waved through the checkpoint and back into Italy.
The road became much easier after that and I found that I was making good time as I joined the main highway near Domodossola, merging with traffic coming down from the Simplon Pass and heading towards Milan. I was soon safely back in Stresa, the new Punto thankfully unscathed after its rite of initiation on the route of a hundred valleys.
After several unsuccessful attempts to contact Avis with a view to changing the return time for the car the next day, I went out for an evening stroll. Failing to spot any restaurants that appealed to me, I returned to the hotel and had a nice dinner there for the third night in a row, the dining room on this occasion being by far the quietest so far. It looked as though Monday wasn't a coach tour night in Stresa.