Monte San Salvatore viewed from the village of Castagnola.
Right now we’re temporary residents of Castagnola, a village just north of Lugano. It’s not so high up Monte Bre, making it much more convenient than Aldesago, where we stayed in 2019 and again last year. The view from Aldesago was amazing, but driving up and down the mountain every day got a little old.
This year we’re on the second floor (out of six) of the apartment building, facing the mountain instead of the lake. So no view, but we got a lot more space for the money (which makes a huge difference when you’re staying someplace for a month).
These photos that I took on the way to caffè and brioche this morning will give you an idea of the neighborhood.
Leaving our apartment building…
…and walking down the street in search of cappuccino..
We’ve really enjoyed our stay here at the Utoring complex in Aldesago, but it’s time to say goodbye — to this little apartment and to the expansive view of Lugano and the distant mountains.
Day after tomorrow we’ll say goodbye to Lugano itself for a little over a week while we visit Italy; first Riomaggiore in Cinque Terre, then Ananda Assisi.
Here are three little videos to give you a sense of the delightful experiences we had yesterday.
First of all, as we were walking up the driveway on the way to our walk in the forest, I just had to stop and listen to the joyful birdsong.
Then, while we were still standing there, we noticed that noise was coming from the funicular track. We waited a few minutes in order to video the funicular passing by — one going up to the top of Monte Brè while the other headed back down to Lugano.
Finally, while walking through the forest we heard a cuckoo call. I had never heard a live cuckoo until I lived in Italy.
I always get a special kick out of hearing them because of playing Mahler’s 1st Symphony back when I was a student at the SF Conservatory of Music. Mahler famously orchestrated the cuckoo’s call, although his cuckoo sings the interval of a perfect fourth, while the actual bird sings a (not-so-perfect) third.
Writing this blog post made me curious why I’d never heard the cuckoo before living in Europe. I learned that there actually are cuckoos in the United States, but the numbers in California have declined drastically in the last 100 years due to destruction of their preferred habitat and to pesticide use. 😕
At any rate, it was lovely to hear not just one, but two cuckoos going at it. And then the church bells started to chime! It was the perfect “aural” nature experience.
(The cuckoos were fairly far away, so you’ll have to listen carefully — maybe with headphones — to hear them.)
The apartment house where we’re staying is in the small village of Aldesago, which is located more than halfway up Monte Brè (I believe it’s one of the yellowish buildings circled in the above photo).
I wanted to provide a better idea of how high up we are, so I took a video of the view we see each time we drive to town.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t such a great video — seeing as how I was in a moving car, on a bumpy road, with the view intermittently blocked by trees and houses — so I extracted a couple of “snapshots” from it to give you the idea.
The mountain you see across the lake is Monte San Salvatore, a famous Lugano landmark.
Our little Airbnb is in the “nucleo” (or center) of the old village of Aldesago, located halfway up the side of Monte Brè. There isn’t much information out there about these little villages, but I think the buildings of the nucleo might date back to the 1300 or 1400’s.
The narrow streets aren’t one-way, as those of us accustomed to American roads might expect! When two cars from opposing directions meet, there’s a particular car etiquette that apparently dictates which one pulls over and allows the other to pass.
We’re far enough up the mountain that we would have a view of the lake…if it weren’t for the apartment building across the street. 🙂
As you can see, we look out on a rather uninspiring expanse of concrete, but when I walk out to the edge of the patio area, I can not only see the lake, but — when it’s clear enough — I can see the Monte Rosa massif… a glacier so high and far away that it’s snow-covered all year round.
