Day 29: Lugano

June 22 - First pass by the train station to buy tickets for tomorrow. I’m glad we do, as a helpful employee selects a ticket for us and explains things we otherwise would not know. Such as:

Just select a starting time for the journey. In our case, 10:00. This is NOT the time we expect to leave the train station, but is the time we expect to take the local bus down the hill before that. Our ticket has a four-hour range (10 am - 2 pm), and any public transport we take in that range is covered.
Don’t worry about any particular train, as long as it gets to our destination before the time runs out. Just make sure we use 2nd class, with no seat reservations.

On to Paradiso, a district south along the lake shore. Sunny and warm today. Not much history in Paradiso, just a scenic, relaxing place to wander.

The famous water jet of Paradiso.

Art along the shore.

Castello Cattaneo, which I suspect is just someone’s invention and is a private residence anyway.

A distinctive horse sculpture, obviously the same artist as a work we saw in Vaduz.

Back up to Lugano, eat a basic lunch in a Migros cafeteria, then ‘discover’ the Chiesa di Santa Marta degli Angioli (built in 1499). It sits off a small plaza, not really advertising itself. But the frescos inside are incredible.

The work is a portrayal of the ‘Passion and Crucifixion’ by Italian artist Bernardino Luini (1480 - 1532), a disciple of Leonardo da Vinci. A helpful diagram to the side of the church explains the scenes contained in a lot of detail.

Odette took and interest in this one so we learned about it. It is St. Rocco (1300-27). He left his home in Montpellier on a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s tomb in Rome. However, this being the time of the Black Plague, he never reaches the tomb but becomes distracted with helping the sick people he meets on the way. Inevitably he becomes infected, and is dragging himself along near death when a dog appears and gives him food and water (!). He recovers (!!) and carries on into sainthood. He is normally depicted with a walking staff, had (seen here at his feet), and sometimes a dog (not shown here). Also characteristic is the raised welt (bubo) on his leg, a memento from his plague infection.

Nice one, only in Switzerland! Trilingual water manhole.