Hike on the East Side of Lago di Lugano, near the border to Italy

Monday Sept.9, 2019 -- It seems like we are always on vacation, as this week was another week off for us, which means more hiking of course.

On Monday, best weather was in the South, and we had long wanted to walk along the far side of Lake Lugano across from the city of Lugano, along a small strip of Switzerland between the lake and the Italian Border. We started with a bus ride to the village of Arogno higher on the hill, the last stop on this bus route. From there we descended through mostly forest (not great timing on our part, as there was still lots of morning shadow on this side of the hill, and actually uncomfortably cold) to lake level, and the rest of the hike was up and down along the shore line right to the border, where there is a little "customs" museum set up, known locally as the Smugglers' Museum.

Actually, this little strip of Switzerland is accessible only on foot as we did, or by boat which stops at several places along where we walked. So to get back to Lugano, we boarded the boat at the Museum, arriving there as usual just five minutes before the boat arrived. 

It was a 9 km, 3-hour hike that ended up requiring surprisingly more effort than we originally expected.

We had to wait about 30 minutes for our bus in Maroggia train station, so we did a quick walk around the village. Not much to see except this church on the lake. 

On the bus ride up to Arogno, this is the South end of one arm of Lake Lugano, below Monte Generoso

Village of Arogno, at the start of our hike. The building bottom right is a bank.

Village of Arogno, at the start of our hike

The very pretty Renaissance Church San Stefano

I was quite impressed with the abundance of sculptured details inside the church

View of San Stefano at the base of Monte Generoso

At one point above the village, before heading into the forest, there is this far-reaching view to the Monte Rosa Massif in the Western part of Switzerland 

Our 9-km hike which takes about 3 hours, from Arogno down to the lake and along the lakeshore toward the Italian border. From there you can only get back to Lugano by boat. Interestingly, the town of Campione with its ugly casino is a small enclave of Italy within Switzerland. So we actually hiked between two borders of Italy. 

For almost an hour we walked through the forest, which unfortunately was still in shadow at 11 a.m, and it was uncomfortably cool

Only one small view window along the forest trail, looking down at Lake Lugano where the road and railway cross the lake at Melide

What a relief to finally descend from the cold shade of the forest to the sunshine in Pugerna, and the first of many views of Monte San Salvatore and the city of Lugano

The tiny piazza in Pugerna

There are always Wall Lizards scurrying out of our path

We had lunch on the terrace at the Panorama Hotel in Pugerna, also unfortunately still shady at noon. Here they served us Veal Piccata with spaghetti and tomato sauce, a simple dish but the best tasting spaghetti with tomato sauce..... Too very expensive though, for the simple dish (There was no menu, you had to take what they were cooking, even though we were the only guests)

Heading down through Caprino to lake level. Across the lake to the North are the outskirts of the city of Lugano at the foot of Monte Bré

In the village of Caprino

At lake level. I thought it would be all shady here as well, but there was more sunshine than I had expected

Once in a while we came across a stone structure, sometimes a restaurant, sometimes a private dwelling

The trail was surprisingly non-boring, with lots of stairs up and down and sometimes quite high above the lakeshore as well.

And at the end of the trail, the Customs Museum, or also known as the Smuggler's Museum, which we did not visit. 

At the border of Switzerland and Italy

We got here just in time for the 3 p.m. boat, which returned along the shore we had just walked, which was interesting because we could see the structures or communities we had passed by on our walk here, but from a different vantage point

This for example is Caprino, which we actually approached from above, and really only discovered on its far end.

And we even got a good look at Pugerna and the Hotel Panorama where we had lunch. Arogno is hidded behind the rise on the right. 

Not a bad hike, although we should have done this earlier in the summer on a hotter day, or started later in the day. But we wanted to get back home relatively early