Switzerland's most beautiful village (and it's not where you think)

Ask people to picture the prettiest village in Switzerland and they describe a wooden chalet with the Matterhorn behind it. The village that actually won a national vote for the title is nowhere near the Matterhorn. It is in the Italian-speaking south, on the shore of Lake Lugano, and it is called Morcote.

We found it while looking for somewhere to get married. We went to see the place and it blew our minds. The lakefront is a row of small, cosy cafés and restaurants, and behind them the village turns into a labyrinth of narrow pathways climbing between the houses. Keep going up and you reach the church of Santa Maria del Sasso, some four hundred steps above the water, with a garden beside it and the whole lake laid out below. Go higher still and there is a statue of the Madonna and a set of swings facing the view.

We did not get married there. It was during the pandemic, and we were told at the time that you had to have been born in Morcote, or own property there, to hold a wedding in the village. Whether that still holds, I cannot say. So we did the next best thing. A few years later we came back with our maid of honour and our best man, walked the lanes for a photo shoot, and had dinner in the village. It was charming, and a lovely way to relive the wedding rather than hold it.

That is the reveal. When you think of Switzerland you think of the Alps, and you are not wrong. But the village the Swiss themselves voted the most beautiful in the country is a warm, Italian-feeling place on a lake, about twenty minutes from Lugano. Go and see if you agree.