Rheinfelden->Mumpf

A stroll along the Rhine to start to fill in a blank spot on the map.

Greg made a judgement error and wore sandals: doing a few hours on the first real sandal day is begging for blisters, which he got. Still, it was a nice walk.

Locarno -> Cimetta -> Locarno

After checking out of the hotel we dropped a bag at the train station and then started our way up out of Locarno in perfect weather. The first couple hundred meters, up to Madonna del Sasso, were mostly along steps between houses (memories of the Liguria trip). The path continued through Orselina before we ended up on a really nice old mule path that switched back up, up, up through a chestnut forest to San Bernardo. More up, up, through the trees past Cordaccia and Trigumo before we hit the Cap. Alpe Cardada. Onwards along the now flat path to the Cap. Lo Stallone and the masses of people who've come up with the gondola to Cardada and chair lift to the Cimetta. On the way past the cabana the sight (and smell) of a copper pot of polenta cooking over a wood fire makes it clear that we aren't going to be having sandwiches for lunch. :-)

The last couple hundred meters to Cimetta are along a more-or-less wheelchair accessible path and quite full of people. Up here the wind is blowing pretty nicely (from the North... cold!) and we see some interesting local weather phenomena like a whirlwind of dead leaves and dust working its way down the path towards us. From the peak we have a really nice panoramic view of the Lago Maggiore, the Tessiner Alps, the back of the Walliser 4000ers (including the Mischabel group, Dufourspitze, and Monte Rosa). We also can see a lot of the way we went a couple years ago on our Easter trip in Tessin.

We had talked earlier about continuing on the last half hour or so to the Cima della Trosa but it looks pretty full up there and the polenta is calling, so we head back down to the Cap. Lo Stallone for a very nice lunch.

The route down goes past Cap. Alpe Cardada, then through Cordonica, Brione, and Minusio before we end up back in Locarno and the train home.

A good hike with a reasonable altitude change (the Tessin is good for that!). Going up there were no complaints, but Greg's knee made itself known during the descent... gotta work on that.

Locarno

In order to flee the crap weather north of the Alps, we took the train down to Locarno on Saturday morning. On arrival we dropped our bags at the hotel, grabbed a quick lunch and did a stroll around town, through the Brocante (more junkantiques than you can possible imagine) and a bit along the lake. Theoretically Locarno is an Italian speaking city... one wouldn't have guess it from the people on the streets this weekend. ;-)

After a nice nap to recover from the early rising, we did a longer stroll along the lake (through Minusio and part way to Tenro) before heading back to the hotel and enjoying a really good meal.