We started at noon which is really rather late for us because we were worried about early morning shade on this side of the mountain, but we won't be doing this again any time soon for two reasons: 1) We have more energy when we start early and the noon-time heat made us sluggish, and 2) the noon bus run is actually a school bus for kids who live in the mountains and go home for lunch, and what a noise of little girls all inquiring in unison in high-pitched Italian voices where we were headed to, like they'd never had adults on their bus run before....
And we needn't have had to worry about sunshine, it would have been OK at 10 a.m. as well, and by noon was surprisingly warm. The stretch we picked should have taken 3 hours to walk (we were planning to add an additional 45 minutes to the next village called Sobrio), but with the heat and loitering in the villages, we managed to make 4.5-hours out of it, just in time for the bus back down. The next village will have to wait for another trip. We've got two more sections to walk, then we'll have added our footsteps to that particular 50-km section....
Biggest surprise to me was the style of houses here: Almost all were in the dark brown wood of the Valais region of Switzerland, rather than the stone rustico houses I have come to associate with Canton Ticino, proof of the early migration hundreds of years ago of the people from the Valais region to this part of Switzerland.
And another interesting thing we learned: We walked through a large chestnut forest where all the trees were numbered. A quick check on the Internet informed us that decades ago, when chestnuts were a staple food, the communities looked after their families by assigning trees to them, and only that family could collect the nuts that fell from that tree....
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| The San Lorenzo Church is the first thing you see when you step out of the bus in Rossura |
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| Since we visited this church on the previous leg of this trail, we decided to move on right away toward the next village of Tengia |
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| The houses in these Ticinese villages are actually Valais-style architecture |
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| It's always a treat to come across waterfalls and ponds such as this one. |
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| A large part of our 4+ hour hike was through forest such as this one |
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| On our approach to Calonico, we saw this lovely church (San Martino) perched on a cliff high above the Leventina Valley |
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| Again, we decided not to visit this church, but to check out the village of Calonico instead, which we really liked. |
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| The Strada Alta Trail is also part of National Trail No.2: The Trans Swiss Trail |
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| I thought this was rather cute |
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| This house behind me is a historical building dating from 1684 which has been renovated by a group called "Foundation for Vacations in Historical Monuments" and is being rented as a vacation home |
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| Built in 1684 |
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| I rather liked this replica of a church: This is the standard rustico style of architecture here, stones without mortar. |
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| We came across this Grotto (Ticinese Restaurant) in the chestnut forest. If it wasn't closed for the season, we would have stopped for something to drink here |
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| We wondered why the trees had numbers on them. Seems that decades ago each local family was assigned a tree and they could harvest the chestnuts from it. |
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| We also quite enjoyed the village of Anzonico |
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| In Anzonico, we sat on the bench in front of the church and had coffee, and enjoyed the view to Chironico on the other side of the Leventina Valley. |
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| Across the valley is a sunny plateau with a very lovely historical town called Chironico. We have been there twice. |
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| Shortly before our destination we came across this very old church, Oratorio di San'Ambrogio, the oldest part of this building dates from the 13th Century. Inside were very pretty frescoes |
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| Gorgeous frescoes behing the altar in the little chapel of San'Ambrogio in Segno, shortly before Cavagnago. |
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| More interesting houses along the way |
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| The last village we managed to fit in before catching the bus back down to the valley bottom was Cavagnago. We had a few minutes left to have a quick look. |
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| Interesting hexagonal-shaped fountain in Cavagnago |
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| Five more minutes before the bus came, I had enough time to have a quick peek into the church here. |
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| More frescoes, this one of The Last Supper, a popular subject for paintings. |
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| On these narrow mountain roads, a small van-bus is the norm. This time no kindergarden children!! |
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| On the way back toward Lavorgo, we pass through the villages we just walked through. This is Anzonico. |
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| On a previous hike we walked from Osco to Anzonico. This time it was 11 km from Anzonico to Cavagnago. On the other side of the valley, we've walked from Lavorgo to Chironico to Giornico twice already. |
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