Locarno

Why go

A film festival in a piazza — eight thousand people watching on a giant screen in the open air. Mediterranean Switzerland — palms, camellias and Italian spoken as the first language. Lake Maggiore — boats to the Borromean islands and across the border into Italy. Valleys behind — Verzasca and Maggia, with granite pools and water the colour of glass.

The character

Locarno sits at the northern tip of Lake Maggiore in Ticino, the Italian-speaking canton, at the lowest elevation in Switzerland — which gives it a microclimate of palms, oleanders and camellias two hours from the Alps. It was here that the Locarno Treaties were signed in 1925, briefly the symbol of European reconciliation, and the town has kept a diplomatic self-importance out of proportion to its twelve thousand residents.

The film festival, founded in 1946, is the other claim. Its distinguishing feature is the Piazza Grande: each August a screen twenty-six metres wide goes up in the main square and eight thousand people watch a film in the open air, which is an experience no other festival offers. The programme is serious — the Pardo d'Oro has gone to Godard, Kiarostami and Hong Sang-soo — and the setting means a Swiss market town becomes a genuine cinema capital for eleven days. The rest of the year, the interest is the lake, the valleys and the fact that this is Italy with Swiss trains.

Places of character

Piazza Grande — arcaded and Lombard, with the festival screen in August and a market on Thursdays. Madonna del Sasso — a pilgrimage church above the town, reached by funicular or a steep paved path. Val Verzasca — granite gorges and turquoise pools twenty minutes north; the Roman-looking bridge at Lavertezzo. Ascona — the lakeside town next door, with a painted waterfront and a jazz festival of its own. The Brissago Islands — a botanical garden on two islands in the lake, reached by boat. Centovalli railway — a narrow-gauge line through a hundred valleys into Italy, one of the great short train rides.

The way to do it

Come in August for the festival and get a Piazza Grande ticket for at least one night. Otherwise use Locarno as the base: the Centovalli train, the Verzasca valley and the lake boats are all half-day trips. Swim in the river rather than the lake — the granite pools are colder, clearer and better.

One perfect day

Coffee under the arcades of the Piazza Grande, then the funicular to Madonna del Sasso for the lake from above and the church's terracotta figures. Down and out on the postbus into Val Verzasca: the double-arched bridge at Lavertezzo, and a swim in a granite pool where the water is glass and freezing. Lunch of polenta at a grotto. Afternoon back on the lake, boat to the Brissago Islands for the botanical garden. Evening in the Piazza Grande: eight thousand seats, one screen, and a film starting as the light goes.

Grand hotels

Grand Hotel Villa Castagnola — in Lugano, forty minutes away, for the region's belle époque grandeur. Hotel Belvedere Locarno — above the town with the lake laid out and a garden of subtropical planting.

When to go

Best expression: early August for the festival, eleven days of open-air cinema. Consider: May and June, when the camellias are out and the valleys are full from the snowmelt. Avoid if possible: November to March, when much of the lake shuts and the fog sits in the valleys.

The frame

Ideal stay 2 nights · Minimum 1 night · Best arrival train through the Gotthard base tunnel from Zurich · Airport MXP, 100 km · Walkability the town yes; the valleys need the postbus · Best without a car yes