Floating gardens of Lake Maggiore
Switzerland’s watery wonderland is awash with exotic plants from around the world
Some people visit Switzerland to get closer to their money, others head for the ski slopes, but I’m on course for the little-known sub-tropical botanical gardens of this Alpine country.
The postcard view of Switzerland is of majestic, snow-capped peaks and glacial lakes, but on its northern border with Italy, a warm micro-climate morphs from icy wilderness into a lush, palm landscape that’s more mediterranean than mountain.
At Lake maggiore, a vast inland sea of placid jade green water, where the shore is set ablaze by a rainbow of hibiscus, jacaranda and tendrils of purple bougainvillea, lies some of europe’s most glorious gardens.
Now, the canny Swiss — who have tuned into our rebooted love of gardening during lockdown — have opened up the horticultural havens of Lake maggiore’s Ticino canton with flower festivals this summer.
These gardens, one on an island in the middle of the lake, are packed with plants from all five continents; tall bamboo and yucca from the Far east, stunning oceanblue agapanthus from South Africa and Australia’s massive eucalyptus. Kew Gardens doesn’t do it better.
Lake maggiore, nearly 50 miles long and four miles wide, is Switzerland’s second largest lake, even bigger than the more fashionable Como, where the scent of money hangs over the waterside Bell epoque villas of George Clooney and co.
This happily leaves the streets of maggiore’s two main towns — the colour saturated Ascona and Locarno, which oozes plenty of Latin charm — free of tourist coaches.
Captain Pugwash paddle steamers cruise this inland sea, with a poop-poop of their ships’ horns, gliding between sailing yachts and swish Riva speedboats, greeted by waves from sunbathers lounging in smart beach lidos.
It’s all very Dolce Vita, more Italian than Swiss.
The Sissinghurst of Lake maggiore is the dream-like Isola di Brissago in San Pancrazio, a tiny dot of green in the shimmering water, 1km long and 1km from shore, once owned by a British consul to Naples who shipped in thousands of tons of earth to create this eden.
We enter his magical kingdom, landing on a small beach and pushing our way past yolky-yellow azaleas, Wedgwood blue hydrangeas and a lily pond buzzing with tiny, busy turtles.
The island’s last private owner max emden, a German department-store magnate, scandalised the local burghers in the 1920s by persuading beautiful village women to get closer to nature by shedding their clothes. In order to encourage them to disrobe, he threw money from his balcony to the pool area where they were gathered.
Emdem built a neo-classical mansion here — today a luxury hotel — hung 30 rooms with tapestries and filled the gardens with classical statues.
There are 1,000 varieties of camelia in a nearby camelia park and, for a modest fee, gardeners will create a new hybrid and christen it with your name. I checked the catalogue and discovered that Betty Cuthbert from Sheffield has put her name to no fewer than six varieties — ensuring a kind of immortality. As our guide marlene de Vleger explained: ‘The camellias flourish because, in summer, Lake maggiore draws in 30c of heat then slowly releases this warmth to the roots during winter protecting them from snow.’
In high summer, visitors to the park have a press box view of seaplanes chugging across the lake before take-off. This is where Sir malcolm Campbell broke the world speed water record in 1937.
With dusk falling, it’s time to kick back a prosecco in Locarno’s Grand Piazza, where Italian movies are shown on a giant screen in the open-air, while the locals indulge in il
dolce niente, the sweetness of doing nothing.
Italian is the official language of Ticino; indeed, one third of Lake maggiore lies within its border, and nowhere is more Romanesque than morcote, a pretty former fishing village on nearby Lake Lugano, close by Lake maggiore. It’s a magical hideaway of narrow cobbled passageways, stone houses and family restaurants built on pontoons over the shore.
Next day, we rise dizzingly 800m to Park Scherrer where the former owner, a textile millionaire obsessed by ancient cultures, created a fantasy garden with a surprise on each grassy terrace; first a Japanese tea house, a little higher, a mini Acropolis; on the next tier an Arabian palace and, higher still, an egyptian shrine.
We Brits can take some pride in this botanical heaven. It was wealthy Victorians wintering in Switzerland who first encouraged the cultivation of the fertile lakeside landscape.
TRAVEL FACTS
FLIGHTS to Zurich from £76 one way (swiss.com). Swiss Travel pass giving unlimited travel on rail, bus and boat networks, from £229. Doubles at Hotel Belvedere Locano
(belvedere-locano.com), from £184 per night. Visit ticino.ch for further information.