Magic mountains

Ticino, the southernmost region of Switzerland, basks in the intimate embrace of Italy, a sober, cooler version of that sun-drenched land. It has the red-tiled roofs, Mediterranean colours, wrought-iron dictator balconies loaded with potted geraniums, exquisite bell towers and their deep chimes, and cypresses exclaiming against a blue sky.

The town of Lugano on the lake of the same name is a pretty place from which to start exploring Ticino, and here we saw a fair share of lakeside gardens, chestnut avenues and baroque hotels. But more pleasing by far were the villages outside the town.

The cobbled streets of Meride led to a minuscule square, from which we saw vineyards over the wall on one side while a church bell rang over our heads. In a shaded courtyard, a small palaeontology museum was labelled, simply, &lsquomuseo&rsquo and crowded with fossils, maps and schoolchildren. Even the modest houses are heavily ornamented in Meride. The village once exported artists and craftsmen to embellish the magnificent cathedrals in large Italian cities, and when those emigrants came home they painted lavish frescoes on their own houses and their more austere village churches.

We rode a bus to the Tenimento dell&rsquoOr, a winery owned by a former banker. In vineyards such as these, those who know about wine can discover unusual and individual blends to take home. If you&rsquore not an expert (full disclosure here I haven&rsquot the faintest), here&rsquos the drill. Once an inch of Chardonnay or Merlot is poured for you, look thoughtfully at it, swirl the liquid around, hold it to the light, put your entire nose into the glass to inhale the bouquet, sip, slosh it around in your mouth, and swallow (only the professionals spit, apparently). Then hum agreeably when someone else ventures an opinion on the peppery flavour of the Syrah. Above all, if you want to look the part, don&rsquot drain the glass.

Out in the sunny vineyard again, we followed the rows of espaliered and netted vines down the hill and headed to the slope facing Meride village.

In the old days, people in the Ticino region built their houses on the sunny side of the valley and stored their wines, meats and cheeses on the shaded side, in a cellar or grotto. Whenever supplies dwindled at home, the men went off to the grotto to pick up more.

Often, as our guide tells it, they settled in to sample each other&rsquos wines and meats, and hours would go by before the children were sent to fetch their fathers home. Gradually the women got in on the act, till the grottos became a place in which to socialise and eat together. On the day we came to the Grotto Fossati in Meride, the scent of acacia burning in a wood stove rose above the cool grove in which our tables were set.

While we broke bread and dipped it in peppered puddles of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, we talked with Professor Andrea Tintori about the rich treasure of fossils that has made this mountain, the Monte San Giorgio, a Unesco World Heritage Site. He described the lagoon that was once here and the ancient crustaceans found in the rice fields of the Po plain. And, inevitably with a Californian at the table, he was obliged to explain why you couldn&rsquot possibly clone a dinosaur from a bit of mosquito gut trapped in Jurassic amber. Beef, pork and rabbit were on offer, along with some deliciously smoky polenta. We finished with ice cream and caffé corretto, or coffee &lsquocorrected&rsquo with walnut liqueur.

From Roman times, the site of Bellinzona, a town north of Lugano, has been the point on which several trading routes converged. From here, armies guarded the narrow pass that separated the southern plains from northern invaders. By the early 19th century the entire region fell within Swiss borders and fortifications were no longer necessary, but a wedding cake trio of castles remains. They too constitute a World Heritage Site, and most of the surviving buildings date from the 15th century. The Castelgrande, overlooking the valley and the town, perches lightly on the green, with its soaring watchtower and slim walls. The smaller and chunkier Montebello, with its dollhouse drawbridges, rises on another hill, and comes complete with a black cat wearing a bell on a red ribbon round its neck. The diminutive Sasso Corbaro fortification stands still higher. It contains a minuscule chapel and just outside the chapel you can dine on spaghetti and lobster under a canopy of grapevines.

From the Teatro Sociale to the Piazza Nosetto the houses are impossibly beautiful, with crape myrtle and oleander behind iron railings, friezes painted below the eaves, and trompe l&rsquooeil mouldings over the windows. The piazza contains the tourism office, within the stunning courtyard of the Town Hall, overlooked by galleries spilling with flowers, friezes and crests. Further along, in the Piazza Collegiata, stands the Collegiata of SS. Pietro e Stefano, an imposing church completed in the 18th century. Bellinzona is a convenient day trip from Lugano, says our guide. You take a train in on Saturday morning, wander through the weekly market, look into the church, walk around town and explore the castles all afternoon.

The next day we left the sun, smiles and spaghetti of Ticino and headed northwest. On the way to Sion, we got our first long look at the mountains at the Nufenen Pass. Even in September, patches of snow remained on the slopes. A marmot dived under a rock at the roar of our bus. Another, more seasoned, stood with front paws propped on a rock to guard his tribe, undaunted by traffic. Glossy, long-haired black-neck goats grazed on the short grass. It looked bare as we climbed higher, but the pioneer species are here already, erlen shrubs and herb-willow looking like mauve crayon strokes in the foreground. Over decades, or in just a blink of a glacier&rsquos eye, these slopes too will be clothed in pine forest.

In the afternoon we plunged back down into Alpine woods in the Pfyn/Finges Park for a cool, dark walk, occasionally lit up with goldenrod and the orange berries of mountain ash and softened underfoot with a carpet of pine needles. We crossed the Rhone on a swaying rope-and-plank contraption called the Bhutanese bridge. About halfway through, some of us were wishing we had prayed a bit harder at the Buddhist shrine at the beginning. The return directly over the riverbed was a pleasanter scramble over stones showing sage green and pink in the water.

But the mountaineers in the group were already impatient to gain altitude. At Fiesch the next morning, a cable car took us in stages to the Eggishorn peak, 2,900 metres above sea level. On one side of the ridge were high green meadows, spotted with brave little cottages and black-faced sheep. On the other was what we had climbed so far to see.

The cold is like a blow in the chest, but the view of the Aletsch is truly staggering. At 23 kilometres, it is the longest glacier in the Alps and its clearest features from here are the faces of Eiger, M&oumlnch and Jungfrau. Curving around the glacier is an enormous frozen track, revealing grooves of black rock under snow and ice. This is medial moraine, explains my fellow traveller, rocks and sediment carried down from the glacier. It looks unmoving. But if you could stand on this spot for a hundred years, you would see it all heave and flow like a river.

Even measured on the tiny scale of one morning, the face of a glacier shifts as readily as a child&rsquos. And when I perch on a sun-warmed spot, the rock beneath my feet is no more solid than the one looming ahead. It pulses with life. Star moss and grasses thrust through the crevices, map lichen colours the surfaces and white mountain saxifrage pledges the coming of richer flora.

Southeast of the peak we strolled about in the tiny village of Binn, from which the valley of Binntal spreads out. A cluster of houses, stone at bottom and weathered spruce and larch above, nestled in gardens thick with daisies, red coleus, asters, sunflowers, chrysanthemums and wine-dark hollyhocks. A stream sang on the rocks, a stone bridge arched over it and children bounded along the bridge. A church overlooked it all and the organist invited us to stay to listen to the music. Pretty enough, all of it, but we seemed still to be breathing the thin air of the morning. There were glowing faces everywhere, and the memories of some faces, Eiger, M&oumlnch and Jungfrau, will be cherished long after.

The information

Getting there A good hub at which to arrive in Switzerland is Z&uumlrich. Its airport is easy to navigate and well connected to the city. From Z&uumlrich&rsquos main station in the city, train connections southward to Lugano and westward to Brig, for the Aletsch glacier, are smooth and quick and a Swiss Pass makes things even easier. Swiss Airlines operates direct flights to Z&uumlrich from Delhi and Mumbai. Economy fares start as low as Rs 28,000 return, all-inclusive. See www.swiss.com.

Ticino

Where to stay There are hotels, hostels, pensions and B&ampBs in the Ticino region (see www.ticino.ch). We stayed at the Serpiano (from CHF 120 www.serpiano.ch) in Mendrisio, which has unbeatable views of the elbow of Lake Lugano and the towns around it. There are buses between the Mendrisio railway station and the hotel. In the small town of Sementina, we stayed at the Hotel Cereda (from CHF 108 www.hotel cereda.ch). Buses to and from the Bellinzona railway station, less than 4km away, stop right in front of the hotel.

What to see & do If travelling with children, Swissminiatur, on Lake Lugano, will entrance them, not so much for the little buildings as for the accompanying working models of trains, cable cars and boats. See www.swissminiatur.ch. The nature walk along the Monte San Giorgio is an informative and beautiful trek. In Bellinzona, start at the tourist information centre in the City Hall for a guided tour or self tour around the town and the three castles that guard it.

Fiesch

Where to stay There are a few, small hotels at Fiesch, including the Fiescherhof (from CHF 75 www.fiescherhof.ch) and the Sporthotel Derby (from CHF 75 www.sporthotelderby.ch). Both are walking distance from the cable car and the railway station. Hotel guests handle their own luggage in Switzerland, and there are not always lifts and ramps, so pack light. Smaller hotels are usually not air-conditioned.

What to see & do Take a cable car up to Eggishorn peak, for incomparable views of the Aletsch Glacier. There are also pretty villages around Fiesch, within a longish walking distance if you like, or a half-hour drive up.

Z&uumlrich

Where to stay Z&uumlrich offers a range of accommodation to suit every budget and persuasion. There are hotels (from simple guesthouses to deluxe hotels), apartments, B&ampBs, youth hostels and even campsites. The budget ZicZac Rock Hotel (from CHF 137.50 book at www.zuerich.com) is only a 10-min walk from the train station and has quirky, themed rooms. Hotel St Josef (from CHF 100 www.st-josef.ch) is another budget option in the heart of town. At the top end, your options include the luxurious hotel Baur au Lac (from CHF 540 www.bauraulac.ch), family-owned since it opened its doors in 1844. The hotel is very central, with a private park by Lake Z&uumlrich and adjoining the Bahnhofstrasse.

What to see & do Z&uumlrich itself has a venerable history. Humans have pottered about this site for millennia, and the Romans had a fort here. The place in which that fort stood is now the Lindenhof or linden court, from where you can see the spires and domes of the old city across the Limmat river. There are also good views from a cruise on Lake Z&uumlrich. The splendid Swiss National Museum has especially fine collections of icons, books and lace. The station itself is a classical edifice, busy with exhibitions and markets all year round, including a Christmas market. All in all, with its imposing banks and boulevards, the city is a monument to high living.

In Z&uumlrich, the Z&uumlrichCARD is good value for money. It gives access to city transport (including boats on Lake Z&uumlrich), free entrance to 40 museums, free welcome drinks in about 20 restaurants and various reductions in shops. A card valid for 24 hours costs CHF 19, while a three-day card comes for CHF 38. The card can be bought at the airport, at train stations, hotels in the city and the Tourist Service at Z&uumlrich station. See www.zuerich.com.