Ticino Turismo Diners relax at a restaurant under the arcades in Morcote on Lake Lugano. Click photo for larger image. If you go ... Lugano, Switzerland Lugano is a three-hour train ride (or 30-minute flight) from Zurich. Continental, Delta, USAirways/USWest, Delta, and United offer flights from Pittsburgh beginning at $738 for mid-April departures. Swiss Travel System passes, good on transport from high-speed trains to lake steamers (in season), can only be purchased in advance through RailEurope www.raileurope.com. The passes also give free admission to 400 museums nationwide. As a vacation destination Lugano offers plenty of apartments by the week or month. At the low end of overnight accommodations, the youth hostel Ostello/Jugendherberge Savosa (Via Cantola 13, Savosa; www.youthhostel.ch) offers dorm rooms for about $25 per night, with swimming pool. At the five-star end, on a hilltop high above the city, is the Villa Principe Leopoldo (Via Montalbano 5; www.leopoldohotel.com). The view from the formal gardens of this former palace, atop the Golden Hill, is worth the price (from $275 to $900 per night). The dining rooms at Principe are also five-star. A local favorite is the casual Locanda del Boschetto. For more information: Ticino Tourism, www.ticino.ch.

LUGANO, Switzerland -- Viewed from a hilltop cafe, the scene below me shimmers with a coastal-California vibe: snow-capped mountains, palm trees and a sun-splashed harbor. But the fashionistas in Prada and shades at the next table are speaking German, and my lunch of risotto, truffles and wine is served with a brisk buon appetito. Finally, a flag stamps the view with the right postmark: The red banner's white cross is flying above the sunniest corner of southern Switzerland.

Buon giorno, dude.

Lugano, the heart of the Italian-flavored canton of Ticino, is where the low-key Swiss go to lighten up. It attracts the German speakers, three hours to the chilly north (and even the Milanese, a chilly hour south), to bask in the most dependably balmy weather in the region. Even in November, daytime temperatures reach California-like 60s.

A little more than 12 miles from Como, Italy, Lugano has the equally cerulean Lake Lugano. Locals describe its shape as a fox whose paws clutch the southern foothills of the Alps. The shelter of 50 local peaks topping 15,000 feet allows purple bougainvillea and roses to thrive in a subtropical microclimate. With the granite mountains as a backrest, the city stretches out and relaxes comfortably south, toward Italy.

Lugano works hard; it's a center for Swiss banking gnomes. Cranes elbow each other on the harbor hillsides, building hotels and condos. Young workers, called frontalieri, commute here daily from the other side of the Italian border, a few miles away. The booming economy supports handsome art and architecture, from cathedrals to contemporary landmarks.

The Ticino region has been controlled by the Swiss since the 16th century; the natives refused Napoleon's offer to join his Cisalpine Republic in 1978. But the accent here remains Italian.

"Geographically and culturally, we're part of Italy," Elena Pellandini tells me in flawless English. (Since only 8 percent of the country speaks Italian, locals such as Elena are fluent in German, French and English, too.) But Swiss prosperity and efficiency make their mark. Banks crowd the Italianate piazzas near the town center. From the western end of Piazza Cioccaro, a funicular lifts passengers uphill to the rail station, where the shiny Swiss trains whisk them through the spectacular mountain passes at Bellinzona to the rest of the continent.

To get inside the heads of the Luganese, I headed for the waterfront. The area is sprinkled with cathedrals, red-tiled roofs, and handsome public figures -- a series of a dozen large-scale busts and torsos, scattered through a series of piazzas. The first local head I encounter is a whopper: a 20-foot sculpture named "Blindfolded Eros," dropped on its cheek near the city's Museum of Modern Art.

As the birthplace of the distinctive Ticino school of modern architecture, Lugano has added some daring 21st century shapes, such as that Eros, to its downtown. Corporate headquarters designed by local hero Mario Botta use heavy, rounded shapes that evoke both the mountains and the Roman arcades around town.

	Switzerland Tourism A view from Monte Bre, showing Lake Lugano, the city and Monte San Salvatore. Click photo for larger image.

On a weekday at noon, the arcaded shopping district of Via Nazza offers something for every prosperous window-shopper: suits cut to breathtaking style, truffles by the gram, ultra-thin watches and fresh pastries. The best bargain I find is a cup of espresso at a cafe, by a town hall that looks like an iced lemon wedding cake.

Bare and quiet, by contrast, is one of the city's Renaissance landmarks, just steps away. The plain church of Santa Maria degli Agnioli holds the country's most famous fresco, a wall-sized depiction of the crucifixion of Christ. Painted in 1529 by Bernardo Luini, a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, it's a jam-packed visual primer of the Old and New Testaments, from Adam and Eve to the Resurrection.

On Sundays, the church may be full, but shops and museums are closed. That's when the locals head for the city's two sugarloaf hills, Monte Bre to the east and Monte San Salvatore to the west. I discover an easy route to the top of Bre: the funicular ride to its 3,000-foot summit feels familiar to a Duquesne Incline rider, and the view at the top station is a killer. The famously fit Swiss bring their bikes on board, pedaling another 600 feet up to Alpe Bolla; I decide to wander downhill instead. A well-marked hiking route, displaying travel times in precise Swiss minutes, brings me to the upscale village of Bre.

Christine H. O'Toole A donkey grazes along the hiking paths of Monte Bre, which offers a view of Lake Lugano from 3,300 feet. Click photo for larger image.

If Heidi had grown up to open a contemporary art gallery in a gray stone village, Bre might be the result. Paintings, sculpture and mosaics by famed Swiss artists adorn each cobbled street; the town's Art Walk is an outdoor gallery crawl. As I admire an angular steel sculpture by the village spring, a sleek Mercedes squeezes past and disappears into a garage. Silence descends again, and so do I, measuring by progress to the lake by the sun's changing angle through cypress trees.

Other nearby mountain towns show off architecture as well as art: Botta's famous church on Monte Tamaro is a little more than 12 miles from Lugano, and Aurelio Gaufretti's artful restoration of Castelgrande in Bellinzona makes it literally a high point of a day trip there.

Bellinzona, situated at the junction of four critical mountain passes, has three fortresses dating from the 13th century. The trio earned the town its designation as a UNESCO world heritage site. The gray granite Castelgrande is the largest, with an elegant modern bistro in its walls. A 1991 restoration embedded a sleek elevator in the bedrock below the castle that whisks me down to street level. I emerge on the main square to find entertainment I never expected: Bart Simpson and Elvis Presley.

In preparation for spring Carnival, groups of amateur musicians, called guggen, gather in the medieval town squares here for raucous practice. Today, a gaggle of Elvises and a band of Barts -- looking mostly like collegiate musicians in costume -- are belting out off-key favorites such as the "Spiderman" theme song in the Piazza Collegiata.

	Christine H. O'Toole In Lugano's arcaded open-air market, local specialties such as these white truffles command top prices. Priced by the gram, these nuggets cost more than $100 each. Click photo for larger image.

"They are allowed to play wrong," explains my guide, Christa Branchi, as we stroll the city's market. The guggen actually practice to get worse before the annual pre-Lenten celebration. We leave the discord behind for a short ride over the Malcontone mountains to Locarno. The resort sits on Lake Maggiore, with plenty of summer visitors along the promenade.

"It's Locarno with a K," jokes Branchi, noting the more pronounced German accents on this side of the mountain. And while Locarno's waterfront is pleasant, I find myself longing for Lugano's friendly Latin vibe.

That evening I dine at a rustic restaurant that the locals call a grotto: not a rock, but the cozy Locanda del Boschetto, where the sign proclaims "Specialita di pesce." On the menu tonight is lake fish, served with the local white merlot and a clear evening view. The city's lights cascade down the mountains and dive into the black velvet lake. There's gelato for dessert, and grappa for a toast: viva, bella Svizzera.