Lugano is in the southern part of Switzerland in the Ticino region and it’s one of the most beautiful places you’ll ever see. In Ticino Italian is spoken as the main language and you’ll notice that the vibes, the food and the people are much more closely related to Italy than to Switzerland - it’s a little Italy within Switzerland and has a little bit the best of both worlds. Tourists from all over the country flock to the Ticino region in the summer but also in March/April and October/November as these months tend to already bring bad weather to the northern part of Switzerland while the weather in Ticino is still mild.

Cinque Terre means “five lands” and it is an are in Liguria close to La Spezia made up of 5 main towns: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore - we really liked all towns except for Monterosso al Mare which was the biggest, loudest and “ugliest” one. Cinque Terre is known for it’s old school charm and architecture - the houses are all colored and there ambiance is very old school Italian. People usually come here to relax, hike, drink wine and enjoy the sea. Being a gourmet blog we always want to recommend the best restaurants, bars and local delicacies which is usually very easy in Italy as the food tends to be amazing. In Cinque Terre though, being such a touristy place, we have to admit hat we struggled - the search to find good restaurants was hard and we were at times very disappointed with the quality of food that was served to us.

This weekend we decided to spend the weekend in Morcote, Ticino and try some restaurants we had been very curious about for some time now. Morcote was voted as the “nicest village of Switzerland in 2016” and it really leaves you breathless every time you go. Even though Morcote is located on 10Km from Lugano and could also be done as a day trip, we decided that we would dedicate our entire weekend to the activities in and around this lovely area.