To the Top of Monte San Salvatore

Saturday, November 12, 2016 -- As of about a week, there is lots of snow at elevations above 1000m, so until the winter walking trails are officially prepared, we are relegated to flatland hikes to the North, or steeper mountain hikes way in the South, in the Ticino, where we like to go anyway, and where as of December 11th with the official opening of the new Gotthard Base Tunnel to public transportation we will be able to get there in way less time, so YEAH!

On this Saturday we traveled to Lugano to climb the "House Mountain" Monte San Salvatore. We usually don't climb, but take cable cars or funiculars if possible, but this was something I wanted to tackle (funicular isn't running in winter anyway) and since the climb was on the shady side of the mountain, we walked fast to keep warm and made the summit (600 altitude meters) in 1.5 hours instead of the 2 hours it usually takes.... (more below)

Monte San Salvatore is the pyramid-like peak in the center, as seen from Monte Brè. This is basically the same lighting we had on today's hike.

The start of the hike is along the funicular tracks. We were on Monte Brè in Jan.2016.

From this vantage point, Monte San Salvatore doesn't look so high!

On the way up the only sun we got was on the East Side of the Mountain.

Once we got to the top, there were several look-out points from which one could alternately see the entire Lugano Lake basin, the Italian Alps, and all the way to Canton Valais in the West to the Monte Rosa Massif, where the highest peak in the Swiss Alps (Dufour Peak, 4,634 metres (15,203 ft)) is located.

Very windy look-out point NE to Monte Brè and the Italian Alps to the East

To the West, the Monte Rosa Massif in Canton Valais, with the highest peak (Dufour Spitze) in the Swiss Alps.

At this lookout point, we stopped for our picnic lunch (out of the wind)

This is the view from the spot we stopped for our picnic lunch

This is the official summit of Monte San Salvatore, with the first of six Churches along the "Trail of 6 Churches"

View South along Lake Lugano. We are very close to the Italian Border here.

View South along the San Salvatore Ridge, where we will continue our hike.

From here we walked South across the ridge through a couple of villages, and instead of ending our hike in Carona (there is a bus there) at the top, we decided to finish the 6-Church Trail by descending on the West of the ridge to the valley below, to catch the bus back to Lugano. In total it was a 14 km hike in just a little over 4 hours, with lots of sunshine, but at this time of year, the shadows hit early in the valley bottoms, so we basically have to finish our hikes by 4 pm.

14-km hike, 600 altitude meters, 4 hours

Much of the rest of our hike is through woods, with a few clearings and a couple of villages.

This little village of Ciona has the second oldest church on the 6-Church Trail.

Several of the buildings in Ciona had working sun clocks! And a lizard heading for shelter on the wall.

In the village of Carona, we stopped for Macchiato, and decided to keep hiking on the 6-Church Trail

In the village of Carona

The six churches on the "Trail of 6 Churches"

(Along the 6-Church Trail, these are the six churches in the order we saw them: 1. Monte San Salvatore, 2: Ciona, 3: Church on North side of Carona, 4: Santa Marta on Carona village outskirts South side, 5: Madonna d'Ongero in the middle of the forest South of Carona, 6: Torello, in a clearing on the way down the mountain to Figino)