Ascona, Ticino

Prestige and exclusive holidays

Here you can find everything for a VIP holiday far from noise and prying eyes: some of the most prestigious hotels in Switzerland, a magnificent 18-hole golf course, smart boutiques, a large welcoming Lido, gastronomic restaurants and magnificent walks in the surroundings.

The old town was built around the 16th century church of SS. Pietro e Paolo, and exerts a special fascination: an intricate web of lanes containing every kind of shop leads to the piazza, which lies directly on the lake. The panorama opens out over the lake: here's the famous lakefront with its cafés and tables in the sunshine.

Art and culture

Here you can stroll around and live outside even in winter. Welcome to Switzerland's southernmost and sunniest terrace, with evening shows, markets, and open-air festivals with traditional food and drink, and in June and July the stage for the most important classical jazz festival in Europe. Art and culture are at home in Ascona.

The birthplace of the great artist Giovanni Serodine (1600-1630), Ascona offers its cosmopolitan clientele interesting museums and art galleries and a famous festival of classical music, which is nearly 60 years old. Ascona had its most extraordinary cultural experience at the beginning of the 20th century, when a group of people who advocated a return to nature settled on the Monte Verità. In the following years a cultural and spiritual project developed around this settlement which involved revolutionaries, philosophers, writers, poets, dancers and artists of international fame. The psychoanalyst Karl Jung, the writer Hermann Hesse, the artists Alexei Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin were just some of those who lived (and often bought a house) in Ascona.

Highlights

Borgo Old Town – beautiful Old Town of Ascona around the church of San Pietro e Paolo, an art museum with paintings by artists who spent time living here (Jawlensky, Werefkin, Klee).

Maggiatal – natural river landscape, broad paths in an unspoilt side valley of Ticino, with nearly 40 mountain lakes and a wealth of fauna and flora.

Brissago Islands – worth a trip, reached by a peaceful boat ride; thanks to the near-Mediterranean climate, 1500 different species of plants thrive here.

Centovalli – this enchanting "Valley of a hundred valleys" lies between Domodossola and Locarno, with deep gorges, waterfalls, chestnut woods and picturesque villages, reached by narrow-gauge railway. Rail links to Brig in the Valais, change in Domodossola.

Ronco sopra Ascona – one of the most delightful places overlooking Lake Maggiore, with an enchanting panorama of the lake and mountains, and a picturesque footpath with over 800 steps leading down to the lakeside.