Things to do
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Cardada
A ridge above the town reached by cable car from Orselina, with a steel walkway by Mario Botta running out over the drop and a chairlift on to Cimetta at 1,672 metres. The height gain from the lake is more than fourteen hundred metres.
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Castello Visconteo
The remains of the castle the Milanese held the town from, about a fifth of its original size after the rest was pulled down in 1532, now holding the archaeological museum and its Roman glass.
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Piazza Grande
The arcaded square the town is built around, closed on one side and open to the lake on the other, used as a market, a meeting place and for eleven nights in August as the auditorium of the film festival, with eight thousand seats and one very large screen.
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Ponte dei Salti
A double-arched stone bridge of the seventeenth century at Lavertezzo in the Val Verzasca, over water clear enough to see the bottom at several metres. It is heavily visited in summer and the river is colder and stronger than it looks.
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Santuario della Madonna del Sasso
A pilgrimage church on a rock spur above the town, founded after a vision in 1480, reached by funicular or by a covered stairway of chapels. It holds a Bramantino Flight into Egypt and looks straight down the lake.
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Val Bavona
The steepest inhabited valley in the Alps, running north off the Maggia, with twelve stone hamlets that have never had mains electricity and waterfalls off both walls after rain. The road ends at Robiei, where a cable car climbs to the dams.