Hiking in Piano City Lugano

Anyone up for a walk (or two) in Lugano on Sunday, while witnessing some of the 50 free piano concerts that will be held this weekend, as part of the Lugano Piano event? (that premieres this year, you may read all about it at Protected content )

Former Van Cliburn competition finalist Roberto Plano will kick off the Sunday schedule at LAC Lugano by playing some famous four hand piano pieces (by Schumann and Grieg) with his wife Paola Del Negro. Besides LAC, there will be other six venues for us to discover.

One performance not to miss is the Mozart piano concerto KV415 at 14:30.

Following the Mozart piano concerto we can have a hike around 15:30. Goal of our hike is the only viewpoint we're still missing in the area: Sasso della Predescia (a.k.a Stone of Witches). Located towards the borders with Italy, this rock is a viewing platform over lake Lugano and has been used by ancient civilizations for performing mystic rites (
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Hike is rated as T1/T2 (easy/medium) until the Lourdes shrine below Sasso della Predescia and, according to Protected content , is reminiscent of the landscape in Liguria. Apparently, getting to Sasso della Predescia is more challenging and is rated as T3, due to a narrow passage. That said, the rock is optional... so there's no need to reach it. Walking time is around 3 hours if we do a loop from Castagnola, while from Gandria it's around an hour.