Lake Lugano
Fly here
A Ticino lake with a jagged outline, set among the mountains and straddling the border.
From the basket
Between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como, Lake Lugano threads its way between the mountains, forming many arms. From the balloon it looks like a puzzle of water, shared between Switzerland, which owns nearly two thirds of it, and Italy.
Around Lugano, three summits rise above it. To the east stands Monte Brè; to the west, Monte San Salvatore; to the south-east, Monte Generoso. In the middle of the lake, a long causeway at Melide cuts it into two basins, and a bridge lets the water and the boats through.
Further south, above the shore, Monte San Giorgio is on the World Heritage list. For more than a hundred and fifty years, countless fossils more than two hundred million years old have been uncovered there, witnesses of a vanished sea.
Fly over the arms of the lake one by one, from Lugano to the Melide causeway, then let the wind carry you back to the quays of the city.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Lac de Lugano” (in French).
All around
- Lugano, close by, to the north
- Bellinzona, 19 km to the north