Lugano

“ Let us turn from the revolution to more pleasant matters. To-day is market-day in Lugano. The greatest crowd is round a man who is displaying on a pole an enormous and highly-coloured picture of a man dripping with blood, who is stabbing a very décolletée lady in blue silk. ”

“ See it come filtering down through a vine-covered trellis on the red handkerchief with which a ragged contadina has bound her hair, and all the magic of Italy, to the eye, makes an aureole about the poor girl’s head. Look at a brown-breasted reaper eating his chunk of black bread under a spreading chestnut; nowhere is shadow so charming, nowhere is colour so charged, nowhere has accident such grace. The whole drive to Lugano was one long loveliness, and the town itself is admirably Italian. ”

“ To begin with, looking backward to the town of Lugano, surrounded by villas among trees—a rich vale beyond the town, an ample tract bright with cultivation and fertility, scattered over with villages and spires—who could help pausing to look back on these enchanting scenes? Yet a still more interesting spectacle travels [Pg 230] with us, at our side (but how far beneath us!) the Lake, winding at the base of the mountain, into which we looked from craggy forest precipices, apparently almost as steep as the walls of a castle, and a thousand times higher. ”

“ Around the shores of other lakes—Maggiore, Lugano, Garda—blue mountains rise and the vineyards spread their green and dazzling terraces to the sun. Only Como can show in unmatched union a main composition, incomparably grand and harmonious, combined with every jeweled or glowing or exquisite detail. ”

“ Beyond the town of Lugano, the hills and wide vale are thickly sprinkled with towns and houses. Small lakes (to us their names unknown) were glittering among the woody steeps, and beneath lay the broad neck of the Peninsula of St. Salvador—a tract of hill and valley, woods and waters. Far in the distance on the other side, the towers of Milan might be descried. The river Po, a ghostly serpent-line, rested on the brown plains of Lombardy; and there again we traced the Ticino, departed from his mountain solitudes, where we had been his happy companions. ”

“ Here we left the steamer for a short ride by tramway to Ponte Tresa, on Lake Lugano, where another little boat was waiting. Although usually regarded as one of the Italian lakes, the greater portion of Lugano is in Swiss territory. Most tourists make it the gateway from the north into Italy, passing through its most populous town, Lugano, which, with its neighbor, Paradiso, lines the shores of a beautiful blue bay, guarded on either side by high mountains, clothed with groves of oak and chestnut set off by vineyards and gardens on the lower slopes. ”

“ Both mountains are accessible by railways. By rail Lugano is 124 m. from Lucerne and 511/2 m. from Milan. Situated on the main St Gotthard railway line, Lugano is now easily reached, so that it is much frequented by visitors (largely German) in spring and in autumn. Though politically Swiss since 1512, Lugano is thoroughly Italian in appearance and character. Of recent years many improvements have been made in the town, which has two important suburbs—Paradiso to the south and Cassarate to the east. ”

“ Lugano is a little town of Italian aspect: porticoes as at Bologna, people keeping house in the streets as at Naples, Renascence architecture, roofs without cornices, long and narrow windows, bare or adorned with a pediment and pierced up to the architrave. The town leans against a vine-grown hill-side commanded by two superposed mountain plains, [Pg 285] one covered with pastures, the other with forests: the lake lies at its feet.
On the topmost summit of a mountain to the east of Lugano, exists a hamlet whose women, tall and fair-skinned, have the reputation of the Circassians. ”

“ Most visitors to Mendrisio, however, make it a place of passage only, en route for the celebrated hotel on the Monte Generoso, kept by Dr. Pasta, Signora Pasta’s brother-in-law. The Monte Generoso is very fine; I know few places of which I am fonder; whether one looks down at evening upon the lake of Lugano thousands of feet below, and then lets the eye wander upward again and rest upon the ghastly pallor of Monte Rosa, or whether one takes the path to the Colma and saunters over green slopes carpeted with wild-flowers, and studded with the gentlest cattle, all is equally delightful. ”

“ Even as I write, I seem to see the golden glow sweeping in broad waves over the purple hills nearer and nearer, till the lake brightens at our 128feet, and the windows of Lugano flash with sunlight, and little boats creep forth across the water like spiders on a pond, leaving an arrowy track of light upon the green behind them, while Monte Salvadore with its tiny chapel and a patch of the further landscape are still kept in darkness by the shadow of the Generoso itself. The birds wake into song as the sun's light comes ”

“ The grand and majestic beauty of Maggiore and the more modest but sweeter loveliness of Lugano were but the preparation for the glorious, satisfying perfection of Como, the most beautiful of all the lakes, “a serene accord of forms and colors.”
160
Lake Como is famous, not alone for its beauty, but for the many associations of history, science, art, and literature. For centuries its shores have been thickly set with costly villas—the homes of wealth and luxury, and not infrequently of learning and culture. ”

“ Returning from Switzerland, I passed a fortnight on the Lake of Como, and afterward visited Lugano. There is no exaggeration in the enthusiastic feeling with which artists and poets have viewed these Italian lakes. The "Titan" of Richter, the "Wanderjahre" of Goethe, the Elena of Taylor, the pictures of Turner, had not prepared me for the visions of beauty that daily entranced the eyes and heart in those regions. To our country, Nature has been most bounteous, but we have nothing in the same class that can compare with these lakes, as seen under the Italian heaven. ”

“ She was working in a field, on the edge of a vineyard. I stopped to look at her, suddenly fascinated by her handsome naked flesh that shone like brass.
Then she called out to me, in a jargon I could not understand, something mocking and challenging. And her voice was raucous and challenging; I went on, afraid.
In Lugano I stayed at a German hotel. I remember sitting on a seat in the darkness by the lake, watching the stream of promenaders patrolling the edge of the water, under the trees and the lamps. I can still see many of their faces: English, German, Italian, French. ”

“ A NIGHT ON A MOUNTAIN
There are not many English abroad this morning on the top of
the hill. In fact, unless they had passed the night here it
would not be easy for them to present themselves, seeing that
San Salvatore, though a very modest mound, standing as it does
in the neighbourhood of the Alps, is high enough to lift its
crest out of the curtain of mist that lies over the lower world.
Lugano, its lake, and its many small towns--as like each other
when seen from a distance as if they had been turned out of a
mould--are understood to lie at some uncertain depth beneath
the mist. ”

“ About an hour before reaching Lugano both of us began to feel unwell and very irritable from the continual travelling; the younger of us especially so, as he was rapidly developing an attack of his horrible complaint—indigestion.
On arriving at Lugano we drove in the Hotel Omnibus to the Hotel du Parc and ordered tea to be brought up into our room, after partaking of which we went to sleep until table d'hôte time. The dinner was, of course, the first we had tasted in Italy, and we cannot say that it impressed us favourably with Italian cooking. ”

“ The road to Lugano begins on a rich and well-cultivated level. The broad, highly varnished leaf of the maize, and the more sober green of the vine, are side by side everywhere. Some country houses are passed. After five miles of this rich cultivation, grass becoming more common, and country houses less so, at Cadenazzo, you leave the valley, and begin the ascent of the Monte Cenere, by which you cross the range that separates the valley of the Ticino from the basin of Lugano. We had been for some little time slowly toiling up the zigzags ”

“ Como cannot be better described in general than in the words of Taylor:
"Softly sublime, profusely fair."
Lugano is more savage, more free in its beauty. I was on it in a high gale; there was a little clanger, just enough to exhilarate; its waters were wild, and clouds blowing across the neighboring peaks. I like very much the boatmen on these lakes; they have [pg 239] strong and prompt character. Of simple features, they are more honest and manly than Italian men are found in the thoroughfares ”

“ They told us we might thence ascend the mountain with more ease than from Lugano, a wile to induce us to stay; but we called upon them to push on. Having weathered this point, and left it some way behind, the place of our destination appears in view— (like Locarno and Luvino) within the semicircle of a bay—a wide basin of waters spread before it; and the reach of the lake towards Porlezza winding away to our right. That reach appeared to be of more grave and solemn character than any we had passed through—grey steeps enclosing it on each side. ”

“ Many days of breva and of rain, of sunshine and of storm have dawned and faded away over the Lake of Lugano, over the hills of Valsolda since that game of cards was played by Signora Pasotti, her husband, the retired controller of customs, and the big curate of Puria, in the boat which coasted slowly along the rocky shore between San Mamette and Cressogno in the misty rain. ”

“ Have you not read in books how men when they see even divine visions are terrified? So as I looked at Lake Major in its halo I also was afraid, and I was glad to cross the ridge and crest of the hill and to shut out that picture framed all round with glory.
But on the other side of the hill I found, to my great disgust, not as I had hoped, a fine slope down leading to Lugano, but a second interior valley and another range just opposite me. ”

“ This is Italy; there are Milan, Monza, Bergamo, a hundred battle-fields from the Trebia to Magenta.
It is natural to compare the Grigna panorama with those from Monte Generoso and Monte San Primo. As a perfect view of the Lake of Como the Monte San Primo is unrivalled. The delicious dip from Monte Generoso on to Lugano perhaps surpasses in beauty the 126 wilder plunge of the Grigna upon the Lago di Lecco. But for the plain and the great range I unhesitatingly give the palm to the higher mountain.
The last spurs of the Alps are here singularly picturesque. ”

“ Luisa, I cannot run the risk of dying without seeing you once more. I shall have only twenty-four hours, I cannot come to the frontier or to Lugano, and I should not be satisfied to spend ten minutes with you. Ask Ismaele to get you to Lugano in some way on the morning of the twenty-fifth of this month. Leave Lugano in time to reach Magadino at one o'clock, for you cannot go by way of Luino. At Magadino you must take the boat that leaves at about half-past one. At four or thereabouts you will reach Isola Bella, where I shall arrive at about the same hour from Arona. ”

“ The people of Lugano, more especially the hotel-keepers, were much
exercised at this undertaking. Nobody in recent recollection had been
known to spend the night on San Salvatore, and if the eccentricity
were permitted and proved enjoyable, no one could say that it might
not spread, leaving empty beds at Lugano. There was, accordingly,
much stress laid on possible dangers and certain discomforts.
Peradventure there was no bed; assuredly it would be hard and damp
and dirty. There would be nothing to eat, nor even to drink ”

“ The route by which I had fully intended to return was to go by the lake to Menaggio, thence to cross to Porlezza and by the Lake of Lugano, and then from Lugano across the Monte Cenere to Bellinzona; to my great annoyance I found, however, at Milan that, owing to the long-standing quarrel between the Emperor and the Confederation, no travellers were allowed to pass immediately from the Austrian into the Ticinese territory, or vice versâ, and we were obliged, therefore, to defer seeing the beautiful Lake of Lugano, to go instead to Laveno, and thence to Bellinzona, by the Lago Maggiore ”

“ Vineyards are scattered along the mountainside in terraces, and the brilliant green of the chestnut and walnut trees is blended with the dull grayish green of the olive and laurel.
Lake Lugano and Lake Maggiore are beautiful sheets of water, but they lack the romantic atmosphere of Como. I can recall no other description so pleasing to the heart as well as to the fancy as the eulogy to these lakes in Mrs. Ward's "Lady Rose's Daughter."
DOMODOSSOLA: Rural Italy, to be appreciated, must be seen by tram, by boat, by steam, by old-fashioned diligence, and on foot. ”

“ The Lake of Lugano is of a complicated shape, and has many arms. It is at this point very narrow indeed, and shallow too; a mole, pierced at either end with low arches, has here been thrown across it, and by this mole the railway and the road pass over to the eastern shore. I turned in this long causeway and noticed the northern view. On the farther shore was an old village and some pleasure-houses of rich men on the shore; the boats also were beginning to go about the water. These boats were strange, unlike other boats; they were covered with hoods, and looked like floating waggons. ”