I'm just as upset about that title as you are. Bellinzona, Switzerland. Ever heard of it? Of course you haven't - neither had I.
We found out about this place because it was one stop past aforementioned Lugano on the train, and it looked just heavenly in photos. It has three main castles from medieval times that are on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and it's nestled between the Alps, so it seemed like a great place for our first-engaged-getaway.
We hopped on the train early Saturday and arrived in town to be pleasantly greeted with a huge open-air street market, which has reportedly taken place every Saturday for the past 500 years. How cool is that?
Almost by mistake, we stumbled into the first castle and promptly strolled in/around/through it for a good hour before booking it back to the hotel to drop our things off and run back to the other castles. Of course, because it's a beautiful town in the mountains, there's also a river that we had to cross between the hotel and the castles. The lower two castles, so you have an idea, look like this.
Upon seeing the 3rd castle, the sunlight was fading over the entire valley and we called it a day and returned to the hotel, taking in sights like that above along the walk. We'd decided that the waterfall we could see in the distance from the hotel (and a solid distance up the mountains) would be our destination for tomorrow, so we needed to be rested.
And fed.
Our hotel offered a ridiculous package that allowed all-you-can-eat from a market-style restaurant nextdoor. It was expensive, but we more than ate our share. It was heavenly. We retired to our room and its walkout patio overlooking a field with three cows, a roaring river, and the Alps behind it. Pretty good day.
Up and at'em in the morning, we put on our walking shoes and asked the front desk how long it ought to take us to get near the waterfall. The woman mentioned that there's a trail and it'd take us about 15 minutes to reach the trail then a bit farther while on it.
We never saw the trail. We started on the wrong side of the river and had to cross it before trekking up what seemed to be a path, past a "don't keep walking this way" sign or two, and upstream.
Not long after this photo was taken, we came to a sort of pool-area in the stream. Having been hiking for a solid 40 minutes at this point and not having seen another person, we did what any rational human would do and skinny dipped in a mountain stream in the Alps. Life is good.
We kept getting closer to the waterfall, too. It was hard to tell how far it was at the start, and the terrain got pretty unstable and genuinely dangerous, but we couldn't turn back. We did periodically wonder why no one was around on this "path" but didn't mind.
We reached the end of the line at this distance.
Life is real good.
On the walk up, we noticed what appeared to be a suspended bridge - cat-walk style - in the valley near the waterfall, a pretty long way above it. This would be our mission for the evening.
We hiked back down, noticed where the trail-head *actually* started, decided that our way was more fun and dangerous and we liked it more, and headed back to the hotel to ask about the bridge. We'd seen people on it, but the front desk claimed to know nothing about it. Odd. So we took a cable-car halfway up the mountain and started walking.
An hour later, and after only one or two wrong-turns, we found ourselves near the biggest hanging-bridge I've ever seen.
The next trip was to a teeny-tiny town called Avio, Italy. It's about 1/50 the size of Bellinzona. You'll see. You'll *all* see.
Kisses!
We found out about this place because it was one stop past aforementioned Lugano on the train, and it looked just heavenly in photos. It has three main castles from medieval times that are on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and it's nestled between the Alps, so it seemed like a great place for our first-engaged-getaway.
We hopped on the train early Saturday and arrived in town to be pleasantly greeted with a huge open-air street market, which has reportedly taken place every Saturday for the past 500 years. How cool is that?
Almost by mistake, we stumbled into the first castle and promptly strolled in/around/through it for a good hour before booking it back to the hotel to drop our things off and run back to the other castles. Of course, because it's a beautiful town in the mountains, there's also a river that we had to cross between the hotel and the castles. The lower two castles, so you have an idea, look like this.
Upon seeing the 3rd castle, the sunlight was fading over the entire valley and we called it a day and returned to the hotel, taking in sights like that above along the walk. We'd decided that the waterfall we could see in the distance from the hotel (and a solid distance up the mountains) would be our destination for tomorrow, so we needed to be rested.
And fed.
Our hotel offered a ridiculous package that allowed all-you-can-eat from a market-style restaurant nextdoor. It was expensive, but we more than ate our share. It was heavenly. We retired to our room and its walkout patio overlooking a field with three cows, a roaring river, and the Alps behind it. Pretty good day.
Up and at'em in the morning, we put on our walking shoes and asked the front desk how long it ought to take us to get near the waterfall. The woman mentioned that there's a trail and it'd take us about 15 minutes to reach the trail then a bit farther while on it.
We never saw the trail. We started on the wrong side of the river and had to cross it before trekking up what seemed to be a path, past a "don't keep walking this way" sign or two, and upstream.
Not long after this photo was taken, we came to a sort of pool-area in the stream. Having been hiking for a solid 40 minutes at this point and not having seen another person, we did what any rational human would do and skinny dipped in a mountain stream in the Alps. Life is good.
We kept getting closer to the waterfall, too. It was hard to tell how far it was at the start, and the terrain got pretty unstable and genuinely dangerous, but we couldn't turn back. We did periodically wonder why no one was around on this "path" but didn't mind.
We reached the end of the line at this distance.
Life is real good.
On the walk up, we noticed what appeared to be a suspended bridge - cat-walk style - in the valley near the waterfall, a pretty long way above it. This would be our mission for the evening.
We hiked back down, noticed where the trail-head *actually* started, decided that our way was more fun and dangerous and we liked it more, and headed back to the hotel to ask about the bridge. We'd seen people on it, but the front desk claimed to know nothing about it. Odd. So we took a cable-car halfway up the mountain and started walking.
An hour later, and after only one or two wrong-turns, we found ourselves near the biggest hanging-bridge I've ever seen.
In order to get onto the bridge, one needed to duck under two sets of caution tape and then walk past a large "Vietato l'accesso. Zutritt Verboten." sign (which is "turn back, idiot" in both Italian and German).
I made it about halfway across before turning back.
Switzerland is unbelievably beautiful. Maybe go there?
Kisses!
Comments
Post a Comment