An Excursion to the Maggia Valley in Canton Tessin

(This album was posted on December 15, 2022)

Thursday November 24, 2022 -- This is the fourth trip into the Ticino in three weeks! It's really our go-to place for sunshine in winter. But it's getting harder to find trails which we have not yet walked, to keep it interesting.

We hadn't been in the Maggia Valley in a long time, so I suggested that for today's excursion. It's always a bit tricky with these side valleys, as the mountains are so high that shade comes early at the valley bottom. I was sure though, that we would have sunshine from 11 till 3 p.m. based on the direction of the hillside where we wanted to walk near the town of Maggia. But I was so wrong! Looks like the hillside had sun at about 9 a.m. already, and the sun was already disappearing behind the western mountains by 1 p.m.! So we started at least an hour too late. We managed only about half of the 3-hour hike we had planned, as there is no point in coming for the sun and walking in the shade.

There are still many villages which we haven't yet discovered, and we spent a lot of time walking the alleyways of the villages of Someo, Giumaglio and Coglio, the three villages on our planned tour (not counting the town of Maggia itself, where we were originally going to end.) The hike up the mountain between Coglio and Maggia will have to wait for another day.

We knew there would still be sunshine outside of the valley, so we took the next bus out and added another sunny one-hour hike through the residences and forests of Ponte Brolla to Solduna, so we still got our 3 hours of walking before heading home from Locarno. The sun was going down there at 4 p.m.

Heading by train toward Locarno, this is what the Magadino Plain and the area around Lago Maggiore looked like at the end of November.

Castello Visconteo in Locarno

At Ponte Brolla, the bus enters the Maggia Valley. We returned here for our second "hike" of the day.

Heading North in the Maggia Valley along the Maggia riverbed. This is one of the best-preserved floodplains in Europe, and we walked here in July 2020, on the other side of the river, (also starting in Someo, and also not making it back to Maggia! -- Those photos are HERE)

Arriving in Someo, the start of our hike. We first visited the village, then walked to this church, which was unfortunately locked.

This small stretch is technnically less than 2 hours, we took about 2-3/4 hours visiting the three villages of Someo, Giumaglio and Coglio, plus the waterfall in Giumaglio, and a hike up onto the mountainside.

Walking through Someo. We started at 11 a.m.

Village of Someo

Heading south to hopefully look inside the church, before heading up into the colourful forest above the village here.

We were disappointed that the church was locked. Based on the lovely painted portico, we figured the inside must have been worth looking at.

Now THAT's a small door!

Heading up the trail behind the village of Someo into the forest, with the lovely fall colours. You can see that the shadow from the mountain has already reached the river.

We found this mountain cabin with a picnic table, a good place to have our lunch!

"Borrowing" someone's picnic table for our picnic lunch, a sunny spot in the forest high above the Maggia Valley.

These mountains used to be large chestnut orchards. Imagine the work involved to build these terraces (probably before the forest grew up).

Another mountain farm building, before heading back to the valley bottom.

It is fascinating how the buildings were sometimes incorporated into the boulders.

Back down at valley bottom, we are headed to Giumaglio, which apparently gets more sunshine

Walking up and down the alleyways of Giumaglio

A look north along the beautiful Maggia Valley

1 p.m. in Giumaglio

There are always many such interesting alleyways between the houses here, lots of interesting things to look at.

Looking down another side alley.

A short distance now along the Giumaglio River to the Froda Waterfall and pool (Pozzo)

The forests here are full of such lovely pools, called "Pozzi".

From here we clambered up the hill on the left, as we couldn't find a trail. There were a few buildings up there that we wanted to look at.

The village of Giumaglio sure has a good location for maximum sun exposure in winter!

Checking out how these outdoor cellars are built into the spaces under the huge boulders.

By the time we made it down to Coglio at 1:45 p.m, the village was in the shadow of the mountain, and the hillside behind it, which we had planned to climb and walk to Maggia town, was also in shadow. We decided to take the next bus back to Ponte Brolla, at the entrance of the Maggia Valley.

Various hikes we have done in the area near the town of Maggia in the Maggia Valley.

As the Maggia Valley is a narrow valley with steep mountains, there are many places that only receive sunshine for a couple of hours per day in winter. Where we were at 1:45 p.m., there was already no more sunshine, so we took the next bus out of the valley again. Along the way we saw that there were wider places with more sunshine; we could have stopped there as well, but headed right to the entrance of the valley at Ponte Brolla and walked on a forest trail there, parallel to the Maggia River, enjoying another hour of sunshine.