When we originally planned our 16 day European family vacation, we were going to take a day trip to Lake Como. But, instead, we went to Lugano, Switzerland for a night and found wonderful things to do in this city.
Truthfully, Lugano felt distinctly more Italian than Milan for me. It reminded me of my summer living in Tuscany. And this held true even as we were there for Swiss National Day, so that’s saying something.
There is a reason why we felt Italian vibes here so strongly. Lugano is Italian-speaking and sits in the southern part of Switzerland. It’s culture is most strongly related to the Lombardy region in Italy.
It is the ninth largest Swiss city and lies on Lake Lugano, with the Lugano Prealps mountain range surrounding it.
The area has been inhabited since the Stone Age!! It was settled by Romans in the 1st century BC. I can’t even comprehend that timeframe. The idea that my teenagers were once babies already blows my mind – trying to imagine human civilization in the same place since the 1st century is impossible.
It’s population as of 2017 was almost 64,000. So it’s large and welcoming but not overwhelming.
We happened to be in Lugano on Swiss National Day. Our time here was magical and quite unique. I imagine the city has a very different aura and atmosphere on days that aren’t national holidays.
But if you get an opportunity to be in Switzerland during this national holiday (always honored on August 1), I highly recommend it. The town bustled with live outdoor performances of all types. Businesses and restaurants were closed to honor the day, but citizens were merry and joyful.
Our Adventure in the Alps
How to get to Lugano
We drove here as we were on our huge trip and it was a very easy, short drive out of Milan (past Lake Como) that took about 90 minutes. Our hotel offered free parking and once we parked, we walked everywhere.
You can get to Lugano by train from Milan and Zurich. The train station is well-located in town and easily walkable.
Where to stay in Lugano
We stayed at The Continental Parkhotel. The room itself was very small and outdated (although it had A/C!). But the hotel was very pretty. It is an older hotel and felt like a European holiday. In the morning, we had the best breakfast buffet we’d ever seen, complete with live piano music in the solarium. The bar offered a generous happy hour/ aperitivos (which we first began enjoying in Milan). The pool was cool and clean. We ate at the onsite restaurant, which was a very-Italian menu that we enjoyed!
The hotel is conveniently located. It is close to the train station.Â
Lugano itself is steep, basically built on the side of a mountain. There is a certain level of mobility required to enjoy the town, particularly if you stay on the side of town with higher elevation, as we did. There is a funicular that shuttles people up and down the steepest section, but that does require waiting.
Go up a mountain (maybe hike)
The first thing we did when we arrived in Lugano was hike. We opted to take the funicular up Monte San Salvatore and hike from there. You can read how to hike Monte San Salvatore in our post here.
But Monte Bre is also a popular spot for tourists to go and climb.
Visit a Lugano church
Since humans have been here basically FOREVER, there are some really beautiful old churches here.
We visited the church on the hill in Lugano – the Lugano Cathedral.
The history here is that it was “probably” founded in the Middle Ages (read as: it’s been here so long, basically FOREVER, that no one really knows when it started). In 818 it became a Parish church and in 1888 a full-blown cathedral. It’s free to enter and really beautiful. The views from the door are exquisite. I imagine God hangs out there quite a bit.
Walk the promenade
We went down to the Lake and enjoyed the promenade. In addition to vendors selling refreshments, there are a lot of funtivities to explore here: renting a motor boat of your own, pedalos for rent, or guided boat tour (of varying lengths and price tags).
We weren’t asking much of Lugano and were very happy just to walk around and see the blue waters, festive vibe and outdoor park-culture that America doesn’t necessarily embrace.
Walk around slowly and enjoy the Lugano streets
There is no need to stress about Lugano and your time there. Even though human beings have been living there FOREVER, Lugano doesn’t ask you to do a mad dash of all the Roman ruins and sites of antiquity. You can calmly just shop, eat, pedal a boat around…
Since Milan was so large and incredibly cosmopolitan, the fun for us here was, oddly, to experience a bit of the Italian lifestyle with our kids. We’d soon be in a quintessential Swiss chalet near Grindelwald, so in retrospect, the opportunity to experience Lugano as a family was even more precious for its uniqueness.
I’ve since read that Lugano is a more peaceful experience yet similar to Lake Como and I can believe it.
Enjoy food and beverage
Of course, we happily enjoyed aperitivos once again. Since Lugano loves to be Swiss-Italian, this Italian cultural tradition is still honored in Lugano.
There are many places to stop and enjoy this moment at the end of the day, but we were quite pleased with the offerings at our hotel, to be honest. We had aperitivos poolside (and on happy hour special prices).
As I mentioned above, we ate at our hotel restaurant as well and had a lovely experience there.
There are all sorts of day trips to be taken from Lugano (we visited Bellinzona on our way to Grindelwald/Interlaken and that was a lovely stop – more soon), and some people come to Lugano as one of their day trips from a neighboring area. Either one works – but we were really happy with our decision to be calm and a bit stationary in this Mediterranean style Italian-meets-Switzerland town.
This stop on our trip ended up being one of the most enjoyable and surprising!
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