Meeting-place Ticino

Autor(en): [s.n.]

Objekttyp: Article

Zeitschrift: The Swiss observer : the journal of the Federation of Swiss Societies in the UK

Band (Jahr): - (1974)

Heft 1681

PDF erstellt am: 23.09.2021

Persistenter Link: http://doi.org/10.5169/seals-686499

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THE SUN-TRAP OF SWITZERLAND wine is still called by its old name. At The People Arzo, Meride and Tremora, one of the It is not without reason that the Visitors to the Ticino, be they rare white wines of the Ticino is grown, Canton Ticino is called the of foreigners compatriots from northern of sun-trap the "Vino dei Tre Castelli". Whoever or Switzerland. With an annual 2,230 hours or western parts of the country, marvel passes through these districts should not of sunshine it compares favourably with again and again that the Ticino should be miss tasting them. Zurich (1,704), Berne (1,708), Basle part of Switzerland. This Canton is so and Geneva (2,047), and deserves different the rest Switzerland; (1,756) Maize from of that "meteorological title". the people and the language so unlike When one connects the Ticino with On the outside of many farmsteads, those of other parts of the country: sunshine, one dreams of deep-blue skies golden yellow bunches of corn-cobs are Melodious names appear; words usually framed by tall, thickly wooded hung up to dry. Maize is cultivated above end in o, a or i. No more Kerhofen which mountains, of the smell of the partly all in the Magadino Plain and in the indicates discipline, but a H/efafo, though tropical plants and, of course, of the sun Mendrisiotto and supplies the main it is not difficult to believe that under the covering everything in its brilliant light ingredient for one of the best-known southern sun, this word is of far less and enhancing every corner of the old Ticino dishes, the "Polenta". significance than elsewhere. On the other brickwork with special magic. hand, though, it is said that the word Unfortunately, such dreams are often and Tobacco. /Vonna, grandmother, still carries much spoilt by the encroachment of technology weight. The story goes that a young man Tobacco cultivation is of the and environmental pollution. one from the Ticino, displeased with his most typical aspects of agriculture in the home, expressed a wish to emigrate to Ticino. The main districts for it are the With Wines America in order to start a new life. His Mendrisiotto, the Luganese (Malcantone) wife approved of the plan, as did his traveller to the Ticino will and the Plain. Over 300 large Any Magadino mother-in-law, though somewhat realise that vines everywhere, in and numerous small producers cultivate grow •^luctantly. The ./Vonna, however, was not possible and impossible place, on more than 9% million square metres. The every at all in agreement and said no, upon the plain, at the lakeside, on the sunny work is done to a large extent by women which the young man stayed at home! slopes of the narrow valleys, along houses and young people. The tobacco is planted and vines in and harvested in August/ garden-walls. Sometimes, are May At the Grotto trained on struts to form a covered way, a September. The green leaves are threaded pergola. Heavy bunches of dark blue on string, and hung up in sheds or on the The Graft/, the small inns, are grapes hang from these green foliage outside walls of houses. In the course of dotted all over the Ticino. They are a roofs. It is remarkable that the ground winter, the leaves are carefully pressed favourite meeting place for men. There under the pergola roofs are cultivated into bales and prepared for collection by they discuss events and political topics, with vegetables or maize — an aspect of the manufacturers. The tobacco is then eat a trifle and have a drink. the diversity of the Ticino. fermented as certain properties, such as Outside the Groffo, there are rough In the Ticino, it is mostly red wine protein, must be reduced. seats with wood or granite tops. Trees or that is grown and drunk: "Barbera" and Tobacco growing, maize and wine vines are trained along wires form a green above all "Nostrano". The old vines of provide the Ticino with characteristics roof which protect one from the hot sun the "Nostrano" have largely died out, and without which one cannot picture the and which make a stay at the Groffo in their place, one plants mainly the Canton. particularly relaxing. heavy, fruity "Americano", though the HCOA/7"E/V7"S

The three most important days of a Basier 6

Prize for 1973 awarded by the Academy of Goncourt 7

Ice-hockey

Official Communications 9

Communications from the Secretariat of the Swiss abroad 12

Three new federal councillors elected 14

Switzerland from day to day 15

News from the Colony Kz'ew o/Twgano and Afoanf San Sa/vafore /ram Monfe

2 and playing Boccia Next to nearly every Grotto there is a Roccz'a alley where one finds men, their shirt-sleeves turned up, choosing a bowl, aiming and throwing The bowls in the alley roll away and strike against the barrier at the far end. First one throws a small bowl. Then the other players try to get their larger bowls as near as possible to the small one. The aim is to push the opponents' bowls out of the way in one single throw. Specially clever players succeed in throwing their own bowls in such a way that those of the opponents roll away whilst their own remain put. Spectators play an important part in the game. They stand along the alley or sit at the Grotto tables, giving their expert opinion on the players' performance.

THE LANDSCAPE Lago di Lugano ,4 re/oxed /zo/ic&zj' crowd /'« Lwgrz/ro. Of the many lakes adorning the Canton of Ticino, that of Lugano is the avalanche year of 1951. Previously, This foreign influx had and has to be paid the probably most interesting. Framed by an avalanche had gone down four times in for. Water pollution resulting in partial or mountains like Monte Brè and San the same spot above Airolo; but on each full prohibition of bathing, garbage Salvatore, it appears like a labyrinth of occasion the strong protective wall had dumps in unjustifiable places and other gulfs in its irregular shape. At its greatest arrested it. Not so in that fateful night — ecological crimes are the consequences the lake reaches 17 below depth, metres it went over the defensive wall at a width which the Canton now has to bear. sea level. Yet, between Melide and of 300 metres and burst right into the Bissone it has a ford which enabled middle of the village. the other Side people to build a bridge across the lake, Rasa is those which over which all the road and rail traffic TOWNS AND MOUNTAIN VILLAGES one of villages passes today. Boats can glide underneath is not situated on a lake, but on the other the arches if they put down their funnels. The Tourist Trade side of the mountains, in the Centovalli. Even today there is no road leading to Equally famous as the Lake of Ever since people discovered the up the little village at an altitude of 900 Lugano is the Lago Maggiore with its beauty of the Ticino, the tourist trade has metres. For the last ten there has holiday resorts such as Locarno, Ascona, become one of the most important years the Isles and their botanical been a cable-railway across the deep Brissago aspects of the economy. The Canton is a Both have Melezza Ravine and high to Rasa. garden. regions a mild, almost poor one, and the security offered by the up Previously, all the traffic had to use a mediterranean climate. The most tourist trade to Ticinese is most many and impressive fact for any Swiss living the welcome. mule-track leading steeply laboriously to the village. other side of the Gotthard, is the Hotels, swimming baths, motor- up The visitor is struck immediately by realisation that there is a part in his boat harbours and places of where the large houses. Who would guess that country cypresses, palm trees, entertainment began to appear on the and of them are empty! There are only orange, fig olive trees grow in lake shores. Ever more strangers wanted many 13 inhabitants left, all aged. The abundance. to enjoy the beauty of the lakes young people have long down to the valley throughout the and had fine houses gone year where they have better opportunities. Plain built at Lugano or Ascona; the latter is The school has been closed for decades — now considered "hyper-snobbish". To the west of Bellinzona lies the no children live there any more. Fifty Some people gave up their triangular plain of Magadino, the alluvial years ago, there were 60 inhabitants. How strenuous work in the vineyards on the tract of the Ticino river. Compared to will be left in ten years? lake shores and sold their land to Swiss many other plains, such as that of the Po, it is from the of the but modest. Yet it is of some German-speaking region Emigration and above all to foreigners. They considerable importance to the Canton of country began to live on the purchase and As far as one can think back, Ticino, seeing that there are some money young opened businesses. Germans specially, people have left the mountain industries, especially the only linoleum poor had mansions built on the slopes above villages for the valleys, because the fields factory in Switzerland, at Giubiasco. the lakes. and vineyards could not feed them. Many This speculative development in the of them acquired riches abroad and then and Highlands Canton of Ticino caused talk about the remembered their native villages by The picture of Corippo in the "Mwsverfczw/ de/- //eimaf" — selling out having a road constructed or a new Verzasca Valley shows how narrow the the homeland. It resulted in church built. Mostly, though, these valleys of the Ticino are and how parliamentary intervention and legislation mountain villages gained nothing from mountainous the character of this part of by the Government to regulate the sale of the emigration of their youth; on the the country. Granted, there are no giants property and building sites to foreigners. contrary, they lost their best labour. of 13,000 ft, but many peaks provide Expensive approach roads now cut Agriculture was neglected, and economic worthwhile mountaineering on rock and across the slopes; houses and hotels of circumstances deteriorated further still. ice for the Alpinist. every class cling to the rocks. Concrete Emigration from the Canton of The Ticino has to contend with the walls have partly replaced the previous Ticino showed strange phenomena: The same difficulties as the "classical" chestnut groves and vineyards. In some of young emigrants from any particular mountain Cantons Valais and Grisons. As the Communes along the lake, the native district all took on the same occupation. an example, one only has to look back to population barely accounts for one-third. The chimney-sweeps in Upper Italy, for

3 Mary is much revered. Its effigy is often found in wayside chapels, and invariably it is decorated with fresh flowers. In processions, too, statues of Mary are carried through the villages. There are many stories and legends telling of the Virgin's apparition. On such a manifestation, the founding of the pilgrims' church Madonna del Sasso near Locarno is based. In the Ticino, one often finds a church on high ground above the village. The path leading up to it is lined with the Stations of the Cross, the Km Chrm. North of the Alps, this is found inside the churches.

Communications Swiss Federal Railways The Gotthard has been of 'ZIoec/a " p/aym. importance ever since the Middle Ages, especially since the crossing of this example, all came from the Verzasca typical example of these early mountain pass is possible in one ascent Valley, the Centovalli and the Onsernone settlements. and one, descent. The era of finally Valley. On old maps, the latter still bears The district of Bosco-Gurin was conquering the Alpine barrier between the same Âwm/ègerar/, valley, of the colonised from the Upper Valais and w'a North and South began with the cutting chimney-sweeps. Builders and artisans the Val Formazza in the Piedmont. In a through the Gotthard massif and the came from other valleys; the most famous document dating back to 1311, one finds construction of the Gotthard railway. among the Ticinese builders, Carlo mention of an agreement made in 1244 It took ten years of work until the Maderno, erected the façade of St. Peter's according to which the Commune of railway could be opened in 1882. Even in Rome. Losone leased some alpine pastures in the today, the Gotthard railway is considered district of Buscho de Quarino to certain ideal as far as its siting and elevation is Bosco-Gurin persons from Formazza for a period of 29 concerned. It allows for a maximum years. Further on, the document states gradient of only 2.6% and thus allows for Near the end of the Maggia Valley, that according to an agreement made in flexible operation. How fortunate that one finds the highest village of the Ticino, 1273, these alpine pastures were made the project with loop-tunnels was chosen at the same time one of the strangest over to the people of Bosco for "eternal in preference to a funicular or places in the whole of Switzerland. In feudal benefice". rack-railway! Today, a freight train can order to understand the houses why travel from Basle to Chiasso without remind one the Valais, the of why village A COUNTRY OF CHURCHES changing the locomotive. The Gotthard has two schools, one German- and one tunnel itself is 15 km long with an and the inhabitants The Ticino is reputed to be the apex Italian-speaking, why of 1,154m. speak an almost unintelligible Alemanic homeland of great artists. Particularly in dialect, one must back in the Renaissance period, great master go history. The Centovalli Railway Historians agree that in the 13 th builders left for other countries. Artists and possibly even the 14th century, and skilled artisans from the Sotto-Ceneri The Centovalli — literally the the strong groups of daring colonisers from created Kremlin towers in Moscow, hundred valleys — forms the quickest the Upper Valais trekked south- and churches in Venice, Triente and Rome, connection between the Ticino and the eastward in order to find a new home in the Royal Palace in Naples. Yet in their Valais. It leads via Domodossola and the the upper valleys of Piedmont, in the Ticinese homeland, we rarely find one of Simplon. As its name implies, many small Grisons and in Vorarlberg. They were of those beautiful buildings similar to those and very small valleys join the main one. Alemannic origin. Their ancestors had commissioned by sovereigns of the big It is a picturesque and rather wild district, settled in the Bernese Oberland and the world — no such wealthy men in the and it was not until 1908 that the first Upper Valais long before the year 1000, Ticino. postal coach ever ventured onto the and thus one might say that this Nevertheless there are many dangerous roads. emigration was a last remnant of the examples testifying to the great artistic European mass migration. talents, viz. many small and large The main reason for this resettling churches whose architecture was during the Middle Ages still plainly influenced from Italy. This is more discernible today, must have been the especially evident in the beautiful poor soil of the Rhone Valley. This belfries, the Campam7e. Many of these inner-Alpine migration was no doubt also churches, often very old, are hidden at the far end helped by the feudal lords who were of a mountainous valley, at the anxious to populate their valleys by last stage of a steep pilgrims' path or above the roofs colonisers. Once settled, the immigrants high of a town, clinging side. were employed in the upkeep of to a mountain These churches have been the the communications or recruited as warriors only luxury of poor valleys for centuries. The used to mountainous conditions. The new eight life of the believer is a hard arrivals had to work hard to acquire their one, for the beauty,of these is meadows. But once they had cleared the valleys far greater than their Yet the churches soil, they were in a better position to fertility. are often in cheerful demand improved legal status. A special painted colours, in orange, characteristic of these "Walser" white or pink. settlements the are widely scattered Via Crucis farmsteads. The now famous holiday resorts Davos, Arosa and Klosters are a As in Italy, the figure of the Virgin A sce«e m K«//e Mzggz'a.

4 Uri had to pay for it by letting the Devil have the first living soul that crossed the bridge. The crafty men, however, did not send a human being across, but a billy goat!

in Olden Times Once the Devil's Bridge existed, the Gotthard route became one of the most important trade channels in Europe. Thousands of mules carried goods from Italy to the North and the other way round. The valleys through which the roads led, extracted toll. The people of Uri wanted to keep the money for themselves and after they had united with the people of Schwyz and Unterwaiden and founded the Confederation in 1291, they threw out the Habsburg bailiffs. The inhabitants of Central Switzerland were not satisfied with the toll money they gathered at the North side of the Gotthard and wanted to get hold of the full route. Gradually they conquered the whole of the Canton of Ticino and would probably have added further territories if they had not been beaten badly at the Battle of Marignano in 1515.

and Today The Gotthard road was built 77ze Gott/zarii /z'zze af Bteezz ai' zY c/z'mèi over 600 /f. z>z a /zzzge S-£ezzz/ crossing iize between 1820 and 1830. Since then, it Mezezzrewss torrent rizree rimes, //ere rize r/f/f rraizz 'Ticirzo", on irs way/ronz A/z'/an has been improved and enlarged several ro Zwrz'c/z, crosses r/ze nzz'ztz//e izrizige some 250/r. aizove r/ze rorrenr. times, but on the whole it still follows the route as it was built originally in the last century. Four later, the railway line to drive along the adventurous years necessary In 1967, a magnificent new road from Locarno to Domodossola was hairpin bends. was inaugurated which leads in sweeping planned. In order to carry out this daring curves from the pass down to Airolo and bold bridges of steel and Bridie-Paths project, many makes driving much more pleasant. concrete had to be constructed. In 1923, The Centovalli is paradise for bridge the first travellers were able to undertake engineers; there are three different kinds, "Trade" the impressive journey, though a many for the railway, for the road and for the passenger must have looked down into In the trade with Italy, the Ticino ancient muletracks. These are narrow the awful with some trepidation! holds a special from the gorges bridges constructed from rough stones. position. Apart One must not forget that this railway line gigantic freight traffic which is handled at Yet they form elegant arches across the consists almost entirely of bridges and Chiasso, there is also another type of ravines. Green plants grow between the tunnels apart from the stops on the way. trade, not official. The goods actually do stones and climb to the parapets, so up reach Italy from Switzerland, but without that the bridges look as if they were part of the rocks. passing the customs. Although no official and is Postal Motor-Coach Services figures reports exist, it an open THE GOTTHARD PASS ROAD secret that above all cigarettes leave Any traveller in the Swiss Alps Switzerland in such a manner. Sometimes knows the yellow postal motor-coaches. The most important North/South it is maintained that several lovely Before moving into the hairpin bends, communication of Switzerland is the churches and chapels in small villages near they warn the oncoming traffic by Gotthard, both road and rail leading from the frontier were built only thanks to the sounding their melodious horn. Basle to Chiasso. Whilst the railway passes money made in smuggling. In the narrow side valleys of the under the Alpine massif in a 15 km-long It must be said that many of the Ticino where the mountainous and very tunnel, the road winds its way up to the Ticino smugglers are practically forced to narrow roads are difficult to negotiate, Gotthard Pass at an altitude of 2,100 m. make money illicitly, for their soil is so the postal coach is the most important Many thousands of vehicles crawl over poor, and once they have realised that in connection between the villages and the the pass every summer. Today it is the a single hour of smuggling they can make larger places in the plain and at the most important crossing in Switzerland. as much as or even more money than in a lakeside. There are no fewer than 55 Though in the past, the road was not full day's work, temptation is great. different postal coach routes in the always as vital for international traffic. Naturally, much is put at risk in a Canton. Anybody who wishes to visit the In Roman times, it was the smuggling venture, and it is by no means narrow valleys by car should consult the Schoellenen Gorge North of the pass, harmless. Customs men and smugglers timetable of the coaches most carefully, which formed an unconquerable obstacle, have lost their lives. so that he won't meet any of the yellow and the Romans preferred to let their At a house of the village of Caprino buses on roads where it is impossible to legions cross the Great St. Bernard or the on the Lake of Lugano, a variety of make way. It is not advisable for anybody Julier Pass. It was not until the Middle articles are exhibited which the customs inexperienced on mountain roads to drive Ages that the construction of the Devil's authorities have confiscated in the course along these narrow roads. It is preferable Bridge made the Schoellenen Gorge of the years. A visit to this strange to leave the car at home and travel by negotiable. "museum" gives one an insight into the coach. Their drivers are most skilled and An old legend says that the Devil methods and means of the smuggling experienced and have the know-how built the bridge overnight. The people of trade.

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