Hepburn Springs Swiss & Italian Festa

Tuesday, 13 July 2010

On to Ascona Saturday Sunday Monday

Zermatt Tuesday

An easy introduction to Switzerland- fast train to Locarno, lunch by Lago Maggorie, ferry to Ascona with our hotel Art Hotel Riposa in the pedestrianised section of town and very cute. The Jazz festival was competing with the World Cup for attention. We settled for the World Cup- Paraguay v. Germany at a waterfront bar, and Germany went on to the semi final. Our hotel had a marvelous roof top terrace looking out on the lake . On Sunday we decided to ‘do’ the Jazz festival , starting with a concert in the piazza.

Everything was very accessible, bands roaming the street, music in restaurants spilling out on to the street. We had lunch at one of the participating restaurant and had a whole afternoon of Jazz-Paris Washboard. We looked for something similar for dinner, but ended at a lovely garden restaurant on the waterfront with jazz piano as a backdrop.

On Monday we visited the Isole Madre and Isola Bella by ferry calling at Intra and Stresa

At Isola Madre the Palazzo Borromeo was built in the sixteenth century, and surrounded by impressive gardens, covering eight hectares constructed in the English style and begun in the eighteenth century… There is one of the earliest camellia collections in Italy, parrots and peacocks, a family chapel, constructed 1858 and a notable palm collection, with specimens up to 125 years old.Then on to the piece d’resistance Isola Bella.Carlo III. Borromeo began to level the rocks and create on the island a palace for his wife in the 17th Century, The works continued till 1958 following the original plan.

Isola Bella is now one of the major tourist attractions on Lake Maggiore. The stately palace dominates one side of the island, while its elaborate, ten-tiered baroque-style gardens fill the opposite side. Connecting the two areas is the shell grotto. The series of six rooms were first conceived in 1685, by Vitaliano the Sixth, with the aid of the architect Filippo Cagnulo. It took 100 years to complete them. In the cavern-like coolness, now as then, the rooms provide a refuge from the summer heat. Every inch of space, including ceilings, floors, and archways, is cov

ered in a mosaic of black and white shells and pebbles.

We left from Lucarno by train over very steep mountains, back through Italy, then coming back into Switzerland at Brig, where we took the Glacier Express to Zermatt, the closest town to the Matterhorn. Not the highest in the Alps but truly spectacular. We went up on the cog railway to the glaciers and the view was breathtaking. People were just about speaking in a whisper it was so awe- inspiring. But this image is what it looked like from our bedroom window. Zermatt is a lovely picture postcard town with no cars and stone houses .The mushroom caps stop the vermin getting into the storerooms