Locarno: Piazza Grande, museums and Cardada

Locarno combines striking architecture and museums with mountain excursions and bathing facilities. When choosing your destination, you can focus on the themes you want to shape your stay: city history and art, views and trails, or water activities.

Piazza Grande and the Old Town

Piazza Grande is a paved square lined with Lombard arcades. They extend for more than 700 metres, reaching the level of Locarno railway station. From December until Epiphany, the square is home to Winterland’s large ice rink. Locarno’s Festival del film has been a meeting place for international filmmaking since 1946. The square and the festival are therefore among the city’s cultural landmarks, while the ice rink adds a recurring seasonal feature.

From Piazza Grande, you can reach the Old Town via steep, narrow lanes. This is worth bearing in mind when planning your route. The square’s arcades and the Old Town’s lanes offer two distinct aspects of the cityscape: a spacious paved square on one hand, and access via narrow, steep streets on the other.

Museums, art and cinema

The Museo Archeologico di Locarno displays archaeological finds from the Locarnese, dating from the Bronze Age in the 13th century BC to the Roman period, from the 1st to the 4th century AD. The museum is particularly well known for its internationally renowned collection of Roman glass. This broad time span provides a historical framework for a visit, while the glassware highlights a specific collection within the museum’s offerings.

At Museo Casa Rusca, exhibitions meet historic architecture. The museum is housed in a typical 18th-century mansion, whose courtyard is surrounded by a three-storey colonnade. Casa Rusca houses the municipal collections and major international exhibitions. It also hosts temporary exhibitions by Swiss and international artists. Museo Casorella offers a different focus: Locarno’s municipal art collections are permanently housed there.

PalaCinema also brings several cultural offerings together in one place. It has three cinema auditoriums with a total of 714 seats, a public foyer and a bistro. The venue also presents its own audiovisual installations and events; its audiovisual cultural installations are open to the public. At Madonna del Sasso, visitors can also visit the Madonna del Sasso Museum.

Cardada, views and outdoor activities

Cardada is Locarno’s local mountain. From there, views stretch across Lake Maggiore and the Magadino Plain to the Valais Alps. Cardada has panoramic platforms, hiking trails and mountain bike routes. The cable car from Orselina, designed by Mario Botta, takes you to the mountain station in just a few minutes. The views, hiking trails and mountain bike routes offer different ways to include Cardada in your stay.

Camellias and bathing facilities

Parco delle Camelie is home to more than 850 different varieties of camellia. The flowering season lasts for nine months, making the park’s extensive plant collection its main attraction. Lido Locarno, by contrast, offers a wide range of pools: indoor and outdoor pools, an Olympic-size swimming pool, a thermal bath, pools for small children and four water slides.

These facilities provide practical points of reference and help you choose what to explore in Locarno based on your travel interests.

Discover more destinations: Indemini, Rasa, Gambarogno TI, Contone, Mergoscia, Verscio, Onsernone, Brione Sopra Minusio

For the overview of the wider area: Locarno.