Lugano and the trip to Arosa (18-19Jul2026)

I wanted to treat Melissa for her birthday and figured the Lake Como area of Italy would be pretty awesome, but when searching for Hilton properties to use points, I stumbled upon the Grand Hotel Villa Castagnola in Lugano.  I did some research and found that Lugano was basically the Swiss version of Lake Como.  We arrived at the hotel late in the evening after our all day adventure in Zermatt and were immediately impressed by the staff's attentiveness and the beauty of this historic hotel.  Unfortunately I neglected to take pictures but everything is online for this hotel anyhow.

When we woke in the morning, I was greeted by a lifer from my balcony.

Italian Sparrow!  You would be forgiven if you IDed this as a House Sparrow, but note the brown crown.  A House Sparrow has a gray crown.  Italian Sparrows are an intergrade between House Sparrows and Spanish Sparrows. 

The view of Lake Lugano from my balcony.

Melissa really liked this area with all the nice shops and gelatarias. 

Dice Snake - reptile lifer for me.

White Wagtail

Black Kite

Great Cormorant

Needless to say I got plenty of Black Kite shots.

Barn Swallow

In the afternoon we walked east on the lakeside into a village called the Gandria.  This is a pedestrian only town and is super cute.  We had Orange Campari drinks which is a new favorite for Melissa.  It is similar to the latest fad of Aperol Spritz but a bit stronger.   I think they are also called Garibaldis.

Overlooking the Gandria.

Eurasian Crag Martins were using window sills for perches.

Italian Sparrow

In the morning I got really excited when I saw this bird on the lawn in front of the breakfast area, but it turned out to just be an immature Common Blackbird.

This day would be devoted to traveling to our next destination, Arosa.  However, I managed to convince Melissa to let me hit up an estuary on the east side of Lago Maggiore on the way north.  

Bolle Di Magadino is a hotspot in eBird for all kinds of waterfowl and raptors. It ended up being a great spot but it was hot and I suspect bird activity would have been better earlier in the morning.

Red-crested Pochard

Tufted Ducks

Immature Eurasian Coot

Little Grebe

Eurasian Wryneck - I tried hard to get a better picture but it stayed far away.

I would have loved to spend more time exploring that area, but it was Melissa's birthday after all.  Our next destination was Arosa which was totally unplanned.  We had left a day unplanned in our itinerary so that if we decided to stay in the Italian region we could, or if we decided to explore the more eastern region it would be easy to change our plans.  I was looking at the Hilton website again because we had some points, and a great boutique hotel came up in Arosa which is a secluded town west of Davos in the high mountains.  The Valsana Hotel turned out to be the best place yet.  I frequently find that the least researched parts of trips end up being the best.  I will save that for the next post.