Ascona

A town and municipality (with about 5,500 inhabitants) in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland, located on Lake Maggiore , in the immediate vicinity of Locarno , 44 km northwest of Lugano , 23 km west of Bellinzona , canton capital (➤ map)(➤ map). The beautifully situated city is a popular tourist destination, known, among others, from the music festivals organized here.

Ascona, located at an altitude of 196 m above sea level, occupies the southern (or rather south-western) part of a small peninsula in the northern part of Lake Maggiore. It is adjacent to Locarno, from which it is separated by the Maggia River , which flows into the lake here, and shares its entire history with Locarno, from prehistoric times to modern times.

Many tourists start their visit to Ascona with a walk along the lakeside promenade, called Piazza Giuseppe Motta (with a terminal for ferries and cruise ships sailing on the lake, yacht marinas and numerous dining options), offering beautiful views of the lake and the surrounding mountains.

To the north of the aforementioned promenade stretches the Borgo, the historic center of the city. One of the most interesting monuments of Ascona is Casa Serodine , a three-story building in Piazza San Pietro from 1620, with a façade decorated with baroque stucco work by Giovanni Battista Serodine. Nearby, on the northern side of Piazza San Pietro, there is the 16th-century parish church of Santi Pietro e Paulo with a characteristic belfry visible from a distance, inside which it is worth paying attention to the painting by the artist's brother, Giovanni Serodine (in the main altar). Approx. 200 m east of Piazza San Pietro there is the Collegio Papio complex with a cloistered courtyard and the church of Santa Maria della Misericordia from the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, built in Lombard style. Near the northwest end of one of Ascona's prettiest streets, Contrada Maggiore , in Via Borgo, is the Museum of Modern Art (Museo Comunale d'Arte Moderna); marker on the previously posted map stands for the other notable art museum, the Museo Castello San Materno, housed in a restored medieval castle.


Ascona is known for two major music festivals. One of them is the Jazz Ascona festival, organized annually at the turn of June and July - one of the world's largest festivals dedicated to classical jazz. The second is the festival known as Settimane Musicali of Ascona (Musical Weeks in Ascona) organized since 1946 (August-October) and considered the most prestigious festival of classical music in Ticino (concerts are held in Ascona and Locarno). Every year in May, performances by street artists are organized in Ascona.


A special place in Ascona is a small hill known as Monte Verità , where a colony (or commune) of people proposing alternatives approach to the world, in particular, according to the indications of the Lebensreform movement, living "in harmony with nature" (naturism, vegetarianism, natural medicine, etc.), attracting numerous intellectuals, artists, but also anarchists, religious reformers, etc. (people interested in these ideas included Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung, Erich Maria Remarque, Isadora Duncan, Paul Klee, Rudolf Steiner, Henry van de Velde, and many others). Today, on the hill, owned by the canton of Ticino, there is a cultural and conference center that organizes various events, including exhibitions dedicated to the history of Monte Verità, using some of the original buildings on the hill.