Bellinzona

Bellinzona is in the Italian part of Switzerland, but strangely, it isn't that dirty. I guess it's more Swiss than Italian.

Right: Tall slice of countryside seen from train between Bellinzona and Grindelwald.
Left: Train Station in Bellinzona - right across from our hotel.
Right: Steph on a bench, taping her toes together.
Left: Hillside above Bellinzona, viewed from downtown. Notice the orange spire of the church near Montebello in the middle distance.

Castelgrande - the main event for Bellinzona. This 13th century castel is on top of a huge cliff and provides an incredible view up and down the valley.


Castelgrande sits on a pretty forbidding cliff. Nobody in their right mind is going to tackle this place.
CastelGrande from the right side, hopelessly garish, intrusive, and ugly parking-garage entrance in foreground.
Crenelations.
View of tower from inside walls - restaurant to near right.
Montibello from Castelgrande.
Montibello in background, Steph on crenelation of Castelgrande in foreground.
Montibello from the side - too bad about the haze. Maybe it adds to the picture.

A part of Castelgrande that sits over the North of the city - a long wall protecting (what else?) a vineyard.

More of the wall.
Steph walking along (down) the wall.

Best shot of the wall.
Another look at the two towers.

Vineyard.
Wall.
Path to montibello. It's a steep path, and it's very hot.
Castelgrande from Montibello.
First sight of Montibello as you reach the top of the hill. The path here was incredibly hard to find - we must have wandered for half an hour before finding it.

Montibello from behind. Absolutely beautiful.

Unnamed (but stately) church.
Church of the Madonna del Sasso. This is a little monastery overlooking Locarno, where we spent the evening after having seen all of the castles of Bellinzona.
Other side of the Madonna del Sasso.
Statue outside Castello Visconte in Luzerne - not much to see of the castello itself, so we took a picture of this statue.
Between Bellinzona and Interlaken, I took some pictures from the train. This is a typical town we passed through.
More countryside captured from the train.
Typical town seen from train.
Last modified: Fri Jun 23 18:07:37 Pacific Daylight Time 2000