ponte dei salti (11. 653)

Driving back through Ticino near Locarno, we headed through the Verzasca valley, punctuated with a monumental reservoir, Lago di Vogorno. Completed in the mid-1960s by the same civil engineer, Giovanni Lombardi, who designed the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the dam makes a cameo in the 1995 film Goldeneye, with James Bond parachuting from the wall. No bungee jumping was on offer today, however.

We went on towards Lavertezzo with the arched pedestrian crossing, built originally in the 1700s for donkeys bearing burdens, over the turquoise river. 

The route was dotted with villages with traditional slate and granite houses. The rapids are treacherous but the shallows in this spot with bathers made it seem like a prehistoric water park from The Flintstones.

synchronoptica

one year ago: paronomasia (with synchronoptica) plus a critique of the Latin alphabet

seven years ago: America’s retaliatory strike on Syria, Salvador Dalí exhumed plus the TSA empowered to check one’s reading material

eight years ago: US supreme court upholds Trump’s travel ban plus the history of America’s Pledge of Allegiance

eleven years ago: Snowden granted asylum 

twelve years ago: drone warfare