One of the places that has been on my radar to (re-)visit for an autumn photography trip has been the southern Swiss Canton of Ticino. When I called Matthias to see whether he would be interested in joining us (Sharon and myself), he replied 'funny you should mention that, I was just planning something similar', and so it was sealed. Sharon and I had visited a number of years ago when the kids were small, but we only scratched the surface of what was available and the focus back then wasn't on photography. We'd also spent a couple of autumn vacations in the Bergell, a valley connecting St. Moritz on the Swiss side with northern Italy.
This is going to be a fairly unashamed picture-dump with little explanation. I'll just leave the images to speak for themselves.
Bergell and Graubünden
When we first visited the Bergell almost 20 years ago we stayed in a house in Vico Soprano. One of the guidebooks in the house was an ancient Baedecker from the early 1900s. Flicking through it one evening, I came across an intriguing entry for the village of Soglio, which the guide described as 'the most beautiful village in the Alps'. Now I don't know every village in the mountains, but I'm relatively well travelled and found this claim to be quite audatious and I needed to investigate further.
 Soglio ca. 2006 |  Soglio in 2024 |
Soglio didn't disappoint and back then we spent more than one afternoon exploring the narrow streets under varying weather conditions. For years we've had a photo of the mountains behind the village above our fireplace in our living room taken back then on slide film (above) and I was keen to retake the image with my Nikon.
There are two roads from Bergell to Ticino; round the mountains via the lakes and over the top via the Splügen Pass. We were driving a brand new car (a Skoda Karoq in case you're interested, literally a day old at this point) and so of course it was the pass road.
Maggia Valley
The Big Plan for Val Maggia was to visit the incredible village of Foroglio. We knew that there had been massive damage in the upper Maggia valley following bad storms in the summer of 2024, but never realised that Foroglio was still cut off. Information on the extent of the damage is still almost impossible to find, all that we know is that the road beyond Cavergno remains closed.
With Foroglio and Calnegia off the plan, we decided to explore Bosco Gurin, a more alpine village to the south. Matthias had also poured over Google maps and identified the village of Cerentino as worth a look underway.
Matthias' instinct proved to be correct and we spent an hour or more running around before heading up to the end of the side valley. Even at the end of October though most things were closed.
From Cerentino we headed up to Bosco Gurin, another of the famous stone villages of Ticino. In other parts of the Swiss Alps, wood is a very common building material but here the predominant building material is the local stone.
I'm finally beginning to feel like I'm taming the Nikon. With the Olympus, the critical parameter that I'm always worried about is ISO; the small sensor is comparatively sensitive to high ISO noise but can handle mid-range aperture and slower shutter speeds well. With the Nikon I really have to watch the aperture carefully to control the depth of field. I need a full two stops to generate a similar depth of field, not counting the extra resolution. Where I can comfortably leave the Olympus pretty much at f/8 all day, I need to go to f/16 to get a similar feel with the Z7II. Fortunately I can mostly leave the camera in auto-ISO to compensate. It also means that I use the tripod a lot more with the Nikon as a result.
Before heading home we investigated one of the many local stone bridges off the road to Mogno that we had found in René Freitag's very useful Photo Location Guide: Schweiz.
Verzasca Valley
The next morning we headed over to Val Verzasca where we planned to stay another two nights at a local Airbnb. The valley starts with the Verzasca dam and Vogorno reservoir after which there is a bridge over the river connecting the tiny village of Corippo with the outide world. Once upon a time, this roadless village was the smallest municipality in Switzerland. This next photo, taken from the bridge, has to be one of my favourites from the trip with the autumn colours complementing the water as well as the overall structure of the river at this point:
I'm still in two minds with this photo above. There's a lot going on, but I was really struck by the colour of the water together with the bright orange beech leaves. To incorporate them I had to include some of the sky. I'd like a second chance at this where I'd go further right to get more of the centre water fall...
Even in late October it was difficult to find parking in Lavertezzo at lunchtime, though the turnaround of cars was sufficiently high that we didn't have to wait for long. There are essentially two photos here - maybe three; the classic one of the church Santa Maria degli Angeli, one of the double-bowed bridge and one from the bridge looking back towards the main village. Photos of the bridge on days like this will always involve having people in the shot. It would be interesting to reshoot here in overcast condition.
On the Saturday we walked from the house down to Lavertezzo and then back to Motta via the high path through the chestnut forest. Unlike the valley path there were plenty of chestnuts on the forest floor to glean and we soon ended up with pockets bulging with the pretty brown fruits. Before the descent to the valley the path passes through an ancient cistern system including the well here below and the buildings in the next shots.
Yes, I did take two cameras on the trip. This one was taken with the Olympus. I don't own any close-up lenses in the Nikon system and probably won't any time soon.
On the last evening we headed up to the bouldering fields below Brione to investigate the river. We were not disappointed and spent a good hour gleefully dancing around the rocks hunting for compositions.
Conclusion
Ticino is the perfect place for autumn photography and the Verzasca valley is particularly photogenic. Hopefully Foroglio hasn't been too badly damaged by the landslides and we can return in a couple of years to revisit some of these spots, maybe in different weather conditions. The river at Ponte Verzasca just below Brione definitely warrants a bit more investigation
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