Ascona tourist information & hotel reservations.

We warmly welcome you to visit Ascona and wish you a wonderful vacation.

Ascona is located 4 kilometers away from Locarno and 42 kilometers away from Lugano. It used to be a small fishing port, but now is a beautiful tourist resort. It is situated on the banks of Lake Maggiore and is well-known by different artists and other famous people. Some of the people who lived there or visited it include Lenin, Isadora Duncan, Carl Jung, Rudolf Steiner, Hermann Hesse and Paul Klee. Nowadays the resort is among the most famous ones in the Ticino.
Some parts of the Old Town are now shadowed by modern constructions, but Ascona is still a very beautiful town and should make some tours around it. There you will see some nice art galleries and small shops for souvenirs and antiques.
The climate in Ascona is very mild and the plants there are subtropical. You can see blooming flowers throughout the whole year. You can also visit the golf courts, the beach and the Kursaal (which is a casino).

Collegio Pontificio Papio, reachable through Cappelle, owns one of the most fascinating yards in the country. The building itself was built in 1584 and has two floors of Italian loggias. Part of the monastery there is the Chiesa Santa Maria della Misericordia, built in the 14th century. There you can still see some of the biggest Gothic frescoes in Switzerland.
Casa Serodine (also known as Casa Borrani), near the piazza G. Motta, dates back to 1620 and still has one of the most splendidly decorated facades of a house in Switzerland. Museo Comunale d'Arte Moderna, located on Borgo 34, has different modern exhibitions as well as displays of art by Klee and Utrillo. It is open from March till December throughout the whole week.
In the Lake Maggiore you will find Isole di Brissago – a botanical garden with some amazing Mediterranean and subtropical plants. It is reachable by boat from Ascona and from other places on the shore, like Locarno. The ride from Ascona is available during the whole day and lasts only 10 minutes.
Along the road by the lake, 18 kilometers away from Ascona, you can visit the Ronco village. It is located on a very picturesque slope and the whole Mediterranean scenery around it one of the most beautiful in the Ticino. In this village lived and is now buried there the popular German writer Erich Maria Remarque.

Ascona Transportation

There is no railway station in Ascona so if you travel by train you should probably stop in Locarno and take a bus or taxi to Ascona. The trains to Locarno pass through the huge junction of Bellinzona and therefore have access to Milan and Zurich.
The buses from Locarno to Ascona are pretty often and the trip lasts about 15 minutes.
From Locarno you can reach the resort by car by driving west on Route 13.
A perfect way to make a tour around Arosa and the nearby lake is by bike. You can hire one at Facchi Claudio, located at Locarno 105 – the price is per day. The place is open during the whole day from Monday to Saturday and Sunday only till noon.

Visitor Information
You can find the Ascona Tourist Board in Casa Serondine, piazzetta San Pietro. It is open from March till October, from Monday to Saturday the whole day and Sunday – only in the afternoon.

For flights, trains and car-rental reservations as well as for buses, coaches and taxi ski transfers refer to the general Switzerland Transportation page!