Locarno - Lake Maggiore & Lake Orta Travel Guide

Locarno, at the Swiss northern end of Lake Maggiore, lies together with Ascona on the alluvial fan of the River Maggia and today has 15,000 inhabitants.

Standing at the foot of the Alpine passes, Locarno was already an urban and prosperous place in the Middle Ages, thanks to tolls and market rights.

It first belonged to the Archbishops of Milan and was later ruled by the Milanese families of the Visconti and the Rusca, who fortified Locarno and Bellinzona heavily against the Swiss, who nevertheless managed to conquer it in the end. Locarno thus fell to the Swiss Confederates as a subject territory at the beginning of the 16th century and in 1803 became part of the Canton of Ticino, which became independent under the Act of Mediation. The history of Locarno

At first Locarno took turns with Bellinzona and Lugano as cantonal capital, until Bellinzona became the permanent capital in 1878 and Locarno, after the building of the railways across the Alps, turned increasingly to trade and above all to tourism.

In 1925 Locarno moved to the centre of world politics when the foreign ministers of Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Poland and Czechoslovakia negotiated the Locarno Treaties, which allowed Germany to join the League of Nations and initially contributed substantially to easing tensions in Europe by outlawing wars of aggression and providing for the peaceful settlement of disputes. The history of Locarno

The heart of the town is the Piazza Grande, an elongated cobbled square regarded as the most beautiful in Ticino. Originally the town ended here and the lake began. But the Maggia tirelessly washed gravel and earth into the lake, so that Locarno and Ascona have kept growing out into the water to this day. The square, towards which all the streets and lanes of the old town lead, is surrounded by arcades with shops, restaurants and cafés, but only acquired its present appearance in the 19th century. A weekly market and open-air concerts bring the Piazza Grande to life, and every August the screenings of the famous film festival take place here on a giant screen, with room for up to 7,000 spectators.

A little to the west of the Piazza Grande stands the Castello Visconteo, built around 1500 as the seat of the Milanese ruling family and originally also on the lakeshore. Within its walls is a beautiful Renaissance courtyard with arcades. The Museo Civico housed here documents the early settlement of the area with finds from the Bronze Age, and above all impresses with a collection of well-preserved Roman glass objects found in the region. The Locarno Pact Room of the museum commemorates the negotiations of 1925, so important to world politics.

The church of San Francesco was built nearby in 1538 from the stones of the partly demolished castle. The Franciscan monastery, which already existed at that time, was the seat of the cantonal government in the 19th century and is now a school. Among the finest patrician houses in town is the Casa Rusca with its three-storey arcaded courtyard. The Casa Rusca now houses the municipal art gallery (Pinacoteca Communale), where the Dada collection of Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp is among the works on show. The Alsatian artist Hans (Jean) Arp (1886-1966) is buried close by in the cemetery of the church of Santa Maria in Selva. In the surviving part of this 15th-century church, which was demolished in 1884 to extend the cemetery apart from the choir and campanile, there are late Gothic frescoes well worth seeing.


Locarno's landmark is the pilgrimage church of Madonna del Sasso, 150 m above the town, with a magnificent view over the town, lake and mountains; it can be reached on foot or by funicular.

The Virgin Mary is said to have appeared here in 1480 to the Franciscan friar Bartolomeo d'Ivrea. The originally modest chapel was developed in the 16th century into a Sacro Monte, a richly illustrated and sensuous bulwark against the austerity of the Reformation.


The church's art-historical treasure is the altarpiece "Flight into Egypt" of around 1520, a major work by Bramantino (c. 1465-1530), a pupil of Bramante and one of the most important representatives of the Lombard Cinquecento.

Two further churches, Sant'Antonio Abate and Santa Maria Assunta, are also stone witnesses to the Counter-Reformation.

In the former it is the decoration of the church and the altarpieces by Orelli, in the latter above all the façade and the ceiling frescoes framed by Mannerist stucco.

Locarno has increasingly merged with the originally independent municipalities of Muralto, Minusio, Orselina and Brione.

In Muralto, not far from Locarno station, stands one of the most important religious buildings on the upper part of Lake Maggiore. It is the Romanesque pillared basilica with three naves, which, apart from the bell tower (16th century), dates from around 1100.

Inside the Baroque-remodelled church, important Romanesque and late Gothic frescoes have been uncovered. Beneath the choir lies a Romanesque hall crypt with unique ornamental and figurative capital sculpture on its slender columns.

Locarno is the terminus of the local trains to Bellinzona, on the great north-south route through the Gotthard. The romantic Centovalli Railway links Locarno through the "hundred valleys" to Domodossola at the foot of the Simplon Pass road, and thus to the second great north-south route through and over the Swiss Alps.

Locarno itself offers its guests an indoor swimming pool and a large lido on the lake.

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