The Valle Onsernone is one of the wildest and quietest valleys in Ticino. Steep slopes, chestnut forests and terraced vineyards shape the landscape. Far below, the Isorno winds through the valley, fed by countless streams that make their way through granite basins, waterfalls and rock faces. In summer, you find cool places to swim; in autumn, the scent of wood fires lies in the air.
Between poverty and beauty
The terraces tell of the hard life in the valley. For centuries, poverty drove many people away: to France, to other parts of Europe or to America. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the inhabitants tried to earn an income by plaiting straw and selling straw hats. These stories are preserved in the Museo Onsernonese in Loco.
When you walk through the valley today, you see both: the beauty of the landscape and the traces of a life that was long marked by hardship. Stone walls, old paths, small villages and abandoned terraces show how closely nature, work and survival belonged together in the Valle Onsernone.
At the very back of the valley
At the very back of the valley, half an hour on foot beyond Spruga, the ruins of the Bagni di Craveggia lie on Italian soil. The former spa hotel closed in 1921. Today, the ruins are silent witnesses to another time, and also to the tragic events at the end of the Second World War.
Artists and writers
Perhaps it was precisely this remoteness that made the valley so attractive to artists and writers. Berzona, the neighbouring village of Loco, became a village of poets. Golo Mann, Alfred Andersch and Max Frisch found their retreats here.
Fashionable Ascona feels far away. In the Valle Onsernone, you find another kind of Ticino: quieter, rougher, less comfortable, but perhaps all the stronger for it. It is a valley that gives you space to walk, read, write, think or simply look.
Today
The Valle Onsernone has preserved its original character. The narrow road that winds through the valley is paved today, but the valley itself remains a place of slowing down. You do not come here for bustle, but for the silence between granite rocks, chestnut trees and old villages.
Perhaps you will find here something of the stillness that has drawn artists, writers and many others to the Valle Onsernone again and again: a landscape that is not loud, but stays with you for a long time.
