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 

carmine superiore (11. 652)

Traveling back to Luina—which inherited market privileges from Maccagno—but not quite the showcase of local food and craft week expected, we returned to Laveno to take a ferry ride to the Piedmontese side on the lake at the port of Intra by Verbania and between the stretch of coast known as the Cannero Riveria—with same Mediterranean flair—and city of Cannobio, we stopped to explore an abandoned village—the lower settlement named inferiore though still populated. 

Though visible from the campground perched midway up the mountain and only about a kilometer away, was quite a journey to get to the well-preserved medieval ghost town, with a hike through the woods and cascades for the final ascent, Carmine Supreiore was originally built as an escape castle and observation post for Carmine below and the harbor of Cannobio, with a commanding view of the lake and Lombard mountains. 

This better-defended retreat saw its significance wane and was depopulated after the First World War, but subsistence farmers and vintners had the foresight to ensure that it did not fall into complete ruin and had a series of caretakers. Dominated by a church from the thirteen hundreds dedicated to St Gotthard, invoked, among other thing, for relief gout and still sees regular pilgrimages from sufferers. Afterwards we went to Cannobio, a pre-Roman city that rebelled against fascism by establishing the independent Republic of Ossola, with its extensive lakefront piazza before heading back the long way around through Switzerland.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica) plus the Pied Piper of Hamlin

seven years ago: low-Earth orbit being crowded out, mobile check-up units, more links to enjoy plus an IBM featurette

eight years ago: a camera carriage frame for car morphing, secessionist groups plus a potential UK constitutional crisis

nine years ago: more links to enjoy

ten years ago: the Wicked-isation of classic fairy-tales

 

eremo di santa caterina del sasso (11. 651)

Driving a bit south, we a came to a late twelfth century religious complex dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria in gratitude by a wealthy cloth merchant called Albertus Bessozi after surviving a violent storm on Lake Maggiore, vowing to become a hermit afterwards and in exchange for prayers and religious support rendered (St Catherine also protected the area from a plague outbreak), the community funded the building of two additional chapels and an extension to the chapter house, presently run by brotherhood of twelve Dominican oblates.

The Blessed Albertus‘ incorrupt body is in a glass coffin in a votive chapel modeled off of the dimensions of St Catherine’s in Sinai. Del sasso means something like on the cliff-edge.  On the way back to the campground, we stopped in Laveno-Mombello and walked around the promenade at the ferry terminal looking for possibles for exploring the islands and further adventures.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: mutineers march toward Moscow (with synchronoptica), Facebook suspends newsfeeds in Canada, Fire Bird (1910) plus a confession of faith (1530)

seven years ago: Turkey removes evolution from its public school curricula, meeting one’s paranormal needs plus AI on fables

eight years ago: construction on Mars, chronotherapies, Brexit contagion plus the first satellite simulcast (1967)

nine years ago: the roots of hippie culture, the Grail in Iceland plus the Nice of the North

ten years ago: the Punitive Expedition (1916)

maccagno (11. 650)

The former independent Lombard commune now merged with other municipalities along the lake, the town where we are staying. Elevated during the tenth century by Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great as the immediate fiefdom of the Four Valleys for hospitality demonstrated during the Kaiser’s Italian campaign against his cousin Berengar II as king of Italy with a charter to hold a market and mint coins of the realm.

The town’s importance waned once grain exports were limited and the town had to give up its autonomy to the counts of Borromeo—of insular fame. We travelled up the mountain overlooking the port first from the village of Agra with numerous Belvedere affording a panoramic view of Lago Maggiore after a nice hike through the woods and then from above Maccagno’s old port abutting a cliff face and caverns for exploring.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: resistance fighter Willem Arondéus (with synchronoptica), the Wagner mutiny plus the last Western Roman emperor

seven years ago: television cameras banned from White House press conferences, the Queen signals her displeasure, plus fact-checking the Trump campaign

eight years ago: populism in the US and UK, subterranean Singapore plus Greenland leaves the EU (1982)

nine years ago: assorted links to revisit, reconciling ancient philosophy with church doctrine plus a chimeric lamb

ten years ago: the importance of boredom, the vocabulary of migration plus bootstraps and bitcoin

lacus verbanus (11. 649)

Referred to by its Roman designation for the anchor community opposite Stresa for ages until properly surveyed in the seventeenth century (its true size not really appreciable due to its sinuous nature) Lago Maggiore—literally the greater lake—is second to Lake Garda as Italy‘s largest by area but the longest of the three sub-Alpine lakes, the above Garda and Como being the others.

Developed during Roman times as a maritime link to the Adriatic via the Po, it again saw a trading revival during the Renaissance for transporting marble for the building of cathedrals in Milan and Turin—in the interim ruled as fiefs by the Habsburgs and clashing local rivals. Studying marsh gas, Alessandro Volta discovered and described methane here in 1776.

passo del lucomagno (11. 648)

Crossing the Lepontine Alps between the cantons of Graubunden and Ticino, we made it up the Lukmanier Passand though navigable for hauling a camper trailer—lorries and buses also use the road—and with far fewer switchbacks than the Gotthard Pass, the hour-long drive was pretty daunting at points with curving inclines and construction but beautiful up the mountain and through the valley and we made it into Italy, taking in views of Lago di Maggiore from the banks on the Swiss side.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links (with synchronoptica) to revisit

five years ago: Mitja and the Microbes plus the world’s first time-free zone

six years ago: the US Nazi party plus the first gay marriage in Britain’s extended royal family

seven years ago: an innovative nest-box, propriety camouflage, alternative keyboard layouts, designing new fulfilment centres plus continuity of government contingency plans

eight years ago: German regionalisms, author Dan Brown sponsors the digitalisation of ancient texts, a snake shedding its skin did not go as planned plus Kill Billy

alpine passes (11. 647)

H and I were headed off for a couple of weeks of vacation in Italy via Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland but were turned back by authorities positioned along the road for the San Bernardino and to go back and take the Gotthard Pass direction Zürich. 

Uncertain and a bit frustrated, we set off but paused to look for better directions and if the famously high passage was suitable for cars towing a camping trailer and a friendly local advised us on the safest route, chancing by on her bicycle and registering that we were lost. We continued through the valley of the canton of Graubunden, passing through every settlement. It wasn’t until en route, still a bit unconvinced, that we realised that our misdirection (of which we garnered a few details from the above informant) was due to a rather catastrophic landslide that necessitated closure of the highway (washing away a section of the Autobahn) and several hundred residents needed to be evacuated, ashamed that I had been cursing AI search results on popular but outdated information when disaster had just struck and was still developing—though I maintain that artificial intelligence still played a major role with suggesting popular searches over timeliness and relevance. 

Climate change is the culprit for these increasingly common disruptions. Given the turning weather and long detour we stayed at a campsite on the way to the Lukmanierpass, safe passage which we later confirmed (the woman who stopped to help was absolutely right), in a beautiful spot by the chief tributary of the Rhein at Rein da Medal, from the Romansch for source.