Hello spring – hello climbing, ice cream and sunshine

At my home in Graubün­den, it snowed 40 cm this morn­ing. I’m about to expe­ri­ence a change of scenery. I’m head­ing south, where I’ll find palm trees, a lake, sun­shine, ice cream, piz­za and some beau­ti­ful gran­ite rocks, which are great for climb­ing. Win­ter vibes to sun­ny climes – wel­come to Tici­no! La dolce vita – how we’ve missed you!

We’re off to Locarno where we can climb out­doors again at last. My climb­ing friend and I have been improv­ing our tech­niques in the indoor climb­ing cen­tre every week over the past few months and we are real­ly look­ing for­ward to our two-day trip to Tici­no. The jour­ney begins on Sat­ur­day evening. After less than two hours, we arrive at the Locarno Youth Hos­tel, right in the cen­tre of the city, where we meet oth­er climb­ing enthu­si­asts for din­ner. We talk about the climb­ing hotspots and look for­ward to the next day.

The treasure hunt for the best climbing spot begins!

The alarm clock goes off at 7.30 a.m. I throw open the cur­tains and feel the sun shin­ing on my face. I look at the palm trees in the gar­den rock­ing back and forth in the wind. I’m feel­ing in a great hol­i­day mood. On the bal­cony, I study our pro­gramme for the day before we have break­fast, which should for­ti­fy us for today’s excur­sion.

We’re both a lit­tle ner­vous about being out again for the first time – nor­mal­ly climb­ing on rocks is more chal­leng­ing than in an indoor climb­ing cen­tre. In addi­tion, you need a lot more equip­ment and find­ing a good climb­ing spot is the first chal­lenge you have to mas­ter. The area boasts many rock faces – the best-known place is not far from the youth hos­tel, near the Ponte Brol­la, in the Mag­gia Val­ley. This spot is also acces­si­ble by bicy­cle, which are easy to rent in the region.

Since this spot is quite well known, we are not the only ones look­ing for adven­ture on this beau­ti­ful spring day. We try out two rock faces, which we find in our climb­ing guide. Find­ing a suit­able climb­ing spot is a bit like hunt­ing for trea­sure. You have to try out a lot until you find your per­son­al favourite, which you usu­al­ly don’t give away to any­one else – only to very close friends, per­haps. So you real­ly have to put in a lot of effort to find a great rock face.

Best pizza in town – a MUST-try experience!

On the first day, we climb five dif­fer­ent routes and then set off to enjoy Locarno a lit­tle more. It’s only a few min­utes’ walk from the youth hos­tel to the cen­tre. Wear­ing sum­mery out­fits, we buy our first ice cream of 2023 and sit down on the shore of Lake Mag­giore. I can’t believe there’s so much snow at home and here it feels like a typ­i­cal sum­mer evening.

After the sun goes down, we enjoy a drink on the prom­e­nade and then a piz­za. Actu­al­ly, any oth­er pizze­ria in Tici­no wouldn’t be worth men­tion­ing. But any­one who loves piz­za also knows the dif­fer­ence between a nor­mal piz­za and a Neapoli­tan one. At Restau­rant Napulé, we both eat the best piz­za we have ever eat­en in Switzer­land. Thin but the edge is nice and airy – it just tastes amaz­ing­ly good! Of course, the food is always excel­lent at the youth hos­tel, but I rec­om­mend this piz­za high­light to all piz­za lovers.

When the weather changes your plans…

On the sec­ond day we walk through the woods above Locarno until we reach today’s climb­ing spot. The weath­er is no longer so friend­ly; it is windy and much cold­er. After com­plet­ing a few routes with beau­ti­ful views, we fin­ish the climb­ing ses­sion a lit­tle ear­li­er than planned – actu­al­ly the “Cas­ca­ta del Salto” water­fall on the Riv­er Mag­gia would have been on the itin­er­ary – includ­ing a short swim in the riv­er. But as the wind has been blow­ing quite strong­ly around our ears as we’ve been climb­ing, we head straight to Ascona and round off our two days by the lake with a deli­cious bur­ra­ta with toma­toes. After that, it’s time to head home. Next time we come, we’re def­i­nite­ly going to explore the water­fall.

Even more Ticino

If you need more inspi­ra­tion for your trip to Tici­no, Nina can help. She was in the sun­ny region of Switzer­land for a short trip.

Off to tici­no