Up San Salvatore for the view over Lake Lugano

Lugano has two mountains standing over it, one on each side of the bay. Monte Brè, to the east, is the gentle one we climb for sunsets. Monte San Salvatore, to the west, is the steep green one that rises almost straight out of the lake, and it is the one people mean when they talk about the view. With my brother over for the weekend, we drove down from Zürich and went up that one.

You ride up on a funicular from Paradiso, on the lakeshore, that has been climbing this slope since 1890. Everyone calls it the cable car, and it is part of the experience rather than a way of skipping it: the carriage hauls you up a gradient so steep the lake seems to tilt behind you, and about twelve minutes later you step out on top.

The view is the point. From the summit, a little over 900 metres up, you get the whole of Lake Lugano at once: the city strung along the shore, the road and railway crossing the water on a causeway far below, the wooded ridges folding away into Italy and, on a clear day, the high Alps on the horizon. The roof of the little summit church has been turned into a terrace for exactly this. If you have the legs, you can walk down the far side of the ridge all the way to Morcote. We saved ours.

Because the second half of a Lugano day belongs to the lake. Back down in Paradiso we bought an ice cream and caught the boat to Gandria, walked its lanes up and down in the sun, photographing every corner, and had dinner there before the boat back. My favourite pictures from the whole weekend are from that ferry: it flies a Swiss flag at the stern, and that one square of red makes every shot.

One day in paradise, then home to Zürich.