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| Photo 1: Lugano lake (CH) |
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| Photo 2: the path |
Fifth day around the lakes. This morning in Domaso they have breakfast from 8:15, very late for my pace. I wake up and the sky is completely covered, no glimmer of sunshine. While waiting for breakfast, I go to the lawn by the lake, sit down and do meditation. As a good cyclist, afraid of rain, during meditation I ask for the sun to come. Not two minutes pass and I feel that the closed eyelids are hit by a stronger light, the sky is opening and he appears who then accompanied me throughout the day.
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| Photo 3: Dongo on Como lake |
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| Photo 4: San Vito church, Vignola on Como lake |
Breakfast and then early, early, early, early which is late, late, late. I have to get to the Carlazzo pharmacy by 12 to swab, so that I won’t have any problems returning to Italy. Yes, today it borders on. If I want to do a little bit of Lake Lugano it is necessarily necessary to cross over to Switzerland. My thoughts turn to the words of Salvatore, who, knowing that I am a great half-saw uphill, offers me at least an hour from Menaggio to the pass. Therefore a few chatter at 9:24 in the street. I don’t have a lot of time to take pictures or anything, even if I took them anyway, but not as I would have liked. A photo of Dongo is a must, but not for the reason you think. I dedicate it to Licia, and to her youth, her idealist! Even if, beyond the different personal sensitivities, it is undeniable that history has passed in Dongo with a capital letter (for non-Italian friends, in Dongo, on April 28, 1945, Benito Mussolini, an Italian dictator, was captured. execution was made in a nearby town, also on Lake Como).
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| Photo 5:Santa Maria Rezzonico. The castle. |
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| Photo 6:Santa Maria Rezzonico. The street descend to the lake. |
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| Photo 7: On the old railway connecting Menaggio to Porlezza |
Arrival in Menaggio, practically after 20 km of headwind, at 10:50 am. I have an hour and 10 to get to my destination. He told me “take the small road at the third bend and you will see that it is not hard at all”. In the face of sporty cyclists who are not half saws. I can do the first three hairpin bends staying in the saddle, 7%, Ok I can do it. At the third bend I take the small road with RSA written which indicates the old railway that connected Menaggio with Porlezza. I see the little road that rears up, I already understand that I can’t do it, 12%. I go down and push. It is only 200 meters, you return to the road and I understand, that if I had made the state road, I would have always remained in the saddle. Next another hairpin bend and there the real path of the railway begins. Superb, barely noticeable slopes, since it was a train that ran through them, it could not be otherwise, in the midst of very cool woods that on this day, which is becoming really hot, are not to be disdained.
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| Photo 8: Piano lake near Porlezza |
I also have time to eat bananas and donuts and take some photos at the Piano lake. Arrival at the pharmacy at 11:50 am on time. Everything ok, certificate of negativity in my hands, I can enter Switzerland, indeed I can return to Italy. I postpone lunch as I have to do something else before going to Switzerland.
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| Photo 9: Porlezza on Lugano lake (I) |
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| Photo 10: Albogasio on Lugano lake (I) |
“Disdainful Ombretta from Missipipì, don’t be shy and kiss me here.”
Yes, here is the villa Fogazzaro Roi, where our fellow countryman Fogazzaro set Piccolo mondo antico, his most famous novel. I arrive in Oria and go down to the villa, also to be able to send a photo to my friend Roberto, as his parents were custodians of the Marquis Roi’s villa in Montegalda and he was here several times on vacation as a boy. A thought also to my friend Paola, an active part of the Roi foundation. It should be closed according to the directions of Maps, but I hear voices down near the church. I approach and a guide from Fai (Fondo Ambiente Italiano, now owner of the villa), asks me if I want to join the guided tour and clearly I can’t say no, even if it was in English, but there was no problem. I was thus able to immerse myself in that story that perhaps we did not understand much in middle school, indeed it had broken us a bit, because when you are young you have other things on your mind.
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| Photo 11: Antonio Fogazzaro’s villa. Oria, Lugano lake (I) |
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| Photo 12: Antonio Fogazzaro’s villa. Oria, Lugano lake (I). Landing stage where 3-year-old Maria (Ombretta) dies drowned in the novel “Piccolo Mondo Antico” |
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| Photo 13: Antonio Fogazzaro’s villa. Oria, Lugano lake (I). |
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| Photo 14: Antonio Fogazzaro’s villa. Oria, Lugano lake (I). The table. |
It is a fantastic villa, which the Marquis Roi, heir of Antonio Fogazzaro, wanted to keep the closest to the moments in which it was inhabited by Fogazzaro, while dressing it in his image and likeness. It is the home of a methodical, precise, fussy collector who looks at the particular because every detail has its own meaning. You understand why he never got married, no woman could have lived with a maniac of order and precision like him! I see the landing stage where in the story Ombretta or rather Maria, she drowned. Difficult to list everything I saw in that house, from the carved coconuts, to the walls completely covered with wallpaper, even in the ceiling and even the bathroom box completely covered without losing the continuity of the paper marks in any way. The dining table is the most remarkable thing, it is completely prepared in a coordinated way and there are two services, both of plates, cutlery, glasses and tablecloths for each month and on provisions given by the Marquis Roi, the Fai tomorrow, 1st of June , Will have to completely change the table, with dishes from the month of June, with different cutlery with different tablecloths. The Marquis left very specific provisions in donating this precious home to the FAI and the Roi foundation is in charge of controlling the work of the FAI.
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| Photo 15: Antonio Fogazzaro’s villa. Oria, Lugano lake (I). Guest bed made from a Russian sleigh |
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| Photo 16: Antonio Fogazzaro’s villa. Oria, Lugano lake (I). Fogazzaro’s bed. |
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| Photo 17: Antonio Fogazzaro’s villa. Oria, Lugano lake (I). Graffiti on the bedroom door "fra tanto variar d’ombre e di luce che sui monti e sul lago il sole induce, una cosa non varia: il lieto volto onde sempre qui vien l’ospite accolto» |
The guest rooms are each decorated in a different style, there is one whose bed is made from a Russian sleigh. On the second floor, lastly, the room of Antonio Fogazzaro, which has remained as he inhabited it. Fogazzaro often hosted family friends in his villa and, if he was not present, offered them hospitality in his personal room. Giacomo Zanella, poet from Vicenza, out of gratitude, wrote a poem of thanks on the door of the room.«fra tanto variar d’ombre e di luce che sui monti e sul lago il sole induce, una cosa non varia: il lieto volto onde sempre qui vien l’ospite accolto» The composer Gaetano Coronaro, himself a guest of the villa, set the text to music by transcribing the score on the same door. In short, graffiti artists ante litteram. On one wall the document with which the then King of Italy appointed Antonio Fogazzaro as Senator.
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| Photo 18: Lugano. Lugano lake (CH). |
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| Photo 19: Lugano. Lugano lake (CH). |
I leave after spending more than an hour for this visit and I try to find a restaurant, but after a few meters there is the border. I go to Switzerland and take Salvatore’s advice as good, or at least the meaning of the advice, that is to say he advised me to eat in Italy first, which corresponds to not eating in Switzerland. I arrive in Lugano and eat my food supplies in a park. I don’t stop to visit Lugano and I say goodbye singing Ivan Graziani with passers-by who look at me a bit like this and I continue to get to Porto Ceresio.
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| Photo 20: The village of Santa Margherita, no street in it! Lugano lake (I). |
In all truth I have not found in Lake Lugano the same landscape power as Lake Como and Lecco, if not in the upper Italian part, precisely in the Valsolda, in fact it is truly a wonderful place there. To make you understand also how wild it is, the piece of Valsolda lake, in front of the villa of Fogazzaro, towards the other shore, just near the Swiss border, there is a village, Santa Margherita, which can only be reached by water. , it has no road connecting it to the rest of the world.
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| Photo 21: Lugano lake (CH). Riva San Vitale, near italian border. |
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| Photo 22: Porto Ceresio. Lugano lake (I). |
I cross the border again, I return to Italy, no one checks me, indeed there is no one at the border, my Covid certificate remains in the bag! Until Porto Ceresio I was not thrilled, maybe I had to first do Lake Lugano and then Lake Como! Tonight I’m a tourist with a good mouth, I took the first hotel I found and that’s okay. See you tomorrow and I’ll be able to tell you if the Italian coast is better than the whole Ticino coast.https://youtu.be/odY9v5GX84w
Sicuramente anche la parte Svizzera è bella, ma è diversa, più impostata su un turismo di massa, mentre la parte italiana nord è veramente come il titolo del romanzo di Fogazzaro: un Piccolo Mondo Antico, e direi anche selvaggio! Basta passare la frontiera e tutto è diverso, incredibile!