Things to do
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LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura
A cultural centre of 2015 on the lakefront holding the canton's art collection and a concert hall, built on the site of the old Grand Hotel Palace. It is where the Italian-speaking canton put its case for being taken seriously.
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Monte Generoso
A summit at 1,704 metres reached by a rack railway from Capolago, with a Mario Botta building shaped like a flower on top. On a clear day the view runs from the Matterhorn to Milan and the Apennines.
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Monte San Salvatore
A wooded cone at 912 metres reached by a funicular of 1890 from Paradiso, with a chapel on top and a terrace that sees the lake's three arms at once and the Monte Rosa chain beyond. The path down through Carona takes about two hours.
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Chiesa di Santa Maria degli Angioli
A small church of 1499 on the lakefront holding a Passion and Crucifixion fresco by Bernardino Luini of 1529, which covers the whole dividing wall and is the most important Renaissance painting in the country.
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Gandria
A fishing village on the lake below Monte Bre with no road through it, houses stacked straight up from the water and stairs instead of streets. It is reached by boat or by the shore path from Castagnola in about an hour.
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Monte Bre
The other side of the bay at 925 metres, claimed as the sunniest mountain in Switzerland, with a village of stone houses just below the top that has been made into an open-air sculpture trail. It faces San Salvatore across the water.
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Parco Ciani
The town's lakeside park, six hectares of cedar, magnolia and camellia around a nineteenth-century villa, running from the centre to the mouth of the Cassarate. It is the reason the promenade works as a walk rather than a road.