We're visiting the town of Locarno, a very pretty little resort town along the shores of Lake Maggiore in southern Switzerland.
The old town has got an extensive arcade – lots of restaurants and ice cream shops, cafés and little stores to poke around in.
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You can have some pizza, pasta, choose from a variety of delicious gelato flavors.
The food's Italian, they speak Italian and yet, yes we're in Switzerland.
The market sells all kinds of products, especially the local handmade crafted items. There is fabrics and products in wool, ceramics and wooden objects. You can find some wonderful local foods at the market like fresh cheese, eggs, fruits and vegetables, and some of the vendors sell this secondhand merchandise like old CDs and books, and even music tapes and clothing can be found here. It's all very down to earth, very local. These are casual part-time vendors just selling their stuff.
We notice the paving and the piazza was smooth water-worn stones in various colors, really quite beautiful.
Locarno's old town goes for about six blocks by four blocks so it's not really huge, but it's big enough to enjoy a nice stroll and have a poke around in the art galleries and look in some of the antique stores.
Quite a few modern shop-fronts along with the mix.
And we're going to take a little trip over to the nearby village Ascona. Here too, you can go by boat from Locarno, or you can just take the city bus. It only takes about twelve minutes on the city bus to get over here to Ascona.
Like Locarno, this town has an Italian feeling to it even though we're still in Switzerland.
There really is something very special about this kind of waterfront where you don't have any cars. You've got the lakeside and you've got beautiful buildings with the restaurants and a broad area for pedestrian promenade, and trees and gardens. It seems so classic and typical of your imagination of the ideal waterfront village, but in reality you just don't run into it all that often. There is normally a road and cars or something in the way of it. Here it's all laid out in a perfect setting.
You can see how popular boating is here for fishing and pleasure craft and just cruising. For the visitor it's all part of the picturesque scenery.
We'll also take a bus ride and hike in the nearby valleys.
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