orwellianTwo

I’m writing this post as I sit on a grey platform at Lugano station. I normally love travelling by train but today is a grey day, a drizzly day, and I’m waiting for the train that will take me away from warm, lovely Lugano to my final destination, and after that back home, and back to work.

But as the train clickety-clacks me back to the crushing normality of the everyday, I will be dreaming of this place, dreaming of towering wooded peaks framing the soft, blue lake, dreaming of the lazy piazzas and warm strolls under the pines, dreaming of the brown rooftops bathing in the soft afternoon sun.

And dreaming, dreaming, of Gandria…

A small village stretched along the lakeside along the other side of Mount Bre, Gandria makes for a hugely popular short trip from Lugano. You can get there by boat in about twenty minutes, or you can walk it. My boat was pretty full, but like the best village destinations it seemed to absorb the crowds away, and it felt like I had the steep, narrow pathways to myself.

Gandria is right on the border, and in the 19th century it did a roaring trade in smuggling ciggies and booze across it to avoid the high Swiss customs duties (there’s a customs museum on the other side of the lake. Apparently it’s even got a submarine they used).

But before then Gandria’s main business was fortunately much more respectable – olive oil. A hard winter in 1709 killed the trees, but they have been replanted along the path back to Lugano – which we’re following – along with notices describing all you need to know about olive oil cultivation. Rather shockingly they’ve named this path which is all about olives Il Sentiero dell’olivo. The Olive Path.

And it’s gorgeous.

Well, the clock isn’t as windy as the Olive Path, it’s much less interested in whiling the day away, and my train is a few minutes away. My final destination will have its interests, like any big city, maybe something to sing about, and I may get a look a having a final meal.

But whatever I find there, it won’t be Lugano.

And it won’t be Gandria.