Motorcycle Tour in Ticino (Russo, Onsernone)

Heeeeeeeeeeeey guys!!!

Once upon a time, in a Kingdom far far away…...

Okay, it wasn't a long time ago, but just now and not in a far away kingdom... We went to Ticino for a few days and had a wonderful time, which led me to drift off into the fairy tale world.

On Sunday morning, it was time. We packed our backpacks, hopped on our bikes and headed south. Since we had a long ride ahead of us, we decided to take the highway to eventually arrive somewhere. However, we took our time and rode over the Gotthard Pass. The ride was wonderful! The temperatures were perfect and as soon as we reached the top of the pass, the sun accompanied us for the rest of the way.

In Locarno, we took a longer break and treated ourselves to some delicious food right next to the airfield. Then we continued for another 45 minutes through narrow streets and steep mountain roads until we reached our destination: Russo in the Onsernone Valley.

We had rented a cute 1.5-room apartment there and everything worked out right away.

Since we were very exhausted from the ride, we didn't do much that day. We enjoyed the view of nature from our balcony and went to dinner later at the restaurant vis à vis. We found out online that there are Roman baths nearby, where you can relax in a bathtub right by the river. That became our destination for the next day!

On Monday morning, we decided to go to the baths in the evening, as there was a fire pit and we hoped to have this place to ourselves. The first goal of the day was to get down to the river. We set off across a large meadow and quickly realized that the cliff was too steep to descend. So, there was a change of plan :).

Originally, we planned to ride as close as possible to the baths with the motorcycles and only walk the last stretch (three kilometers). But since we had bought a bottle of wine, we decided to walk directly from our apartment. We started walking at 4:30 p.m. and had a whole 11 kilometers ahead of us. It was uphill the whole time! After about six kilometers, we treated ourselves to another two kilometers by bus and walked the last three to the river from the bus stop. You can believe us, everything was already hurting on the way there and we regretted buying the bottle of wine! Why didn't we just take the motorcycles??? We asked ourselves this question at least 50 times on the way there - on the way back, about 100 times!

Anyway, we reached our destination around 7:30 p.m.! We got to the river, but it wasn't easy to get to the baths... We had to cross the river and there was no way across. We earned access to the baths by wading through the ice-cold water and immediately filled a bathtub with the spring water. The water had a temperature of 28 degrees, which we initially classified as 'warm'. But we learned better.... 28 degrees are not really warm! Kevin decided not to take a bath - but I absolutely wanted to try it out :).

After the bath, we made a fire, grilled our food and enjoyed a truly magical evening in Italy (the river is the border between Switzerland and Italy).

At 11 p.m., we gathered our strength and started our journey home (motivation was limited, as we knew what to expect). We crossed the river again and being the klutz that I am, I fell and hit my shin on an edge. Since we only had 1% battery left on our phone and it served as our flashlight, we didn't have time for longer stories of suffering and started walking right away. It was pitch black and we couldn't imagine coming home without light. On the way there, a goat crossed our path, which somehow made us slightly afraid in the darkness. These cute animals can actually deliver quite a blow and when you can't see anything... Well... We definitely didn't want to find out. In the hustle and bustle, Kevin also forgot to put on his socks after crossing the river, so when he reached the village, he had huge blisters on his feet. Great... So we walked like two cripples towards home. Everything hurt over time! Every muscle, joint, and bone. But we kept on walking... Every now and then, we took a short break and sat on the road (not a single car crossed our path for the whole three hours!).

About two kilometers before our destination, a few rocks suddenly loosened from the cliff above us. We looked up and saw two big eyes reflecting dangerously in the light from our flashlight. That was the moment when we accelerated our pace despite the pain. We came up with theories of foxes, wolves, and even lynxes. Once again, we realized how much mischief darkness could play.

We reached our apartment at 2 a.m. - completely exhausted - and fell half-dead into bed.

Actually, we had planned to drive home the next day, but there was really no way we could do that! We extended our stay for another night and... went to the baths again! This time, we rode the motorcycles to the parking lot and 'only' walked the last three kilometers. With our battered bodies, the three kilometers felt like an eternity... But once we arrived at the bottom, it was worth it again. In addition, we saw that these baths are really popular during the day and were happy that we were able to spend the previous evening there alone. In the evening, we had a delicious pizza and the following day, our trip to Ticino was definitely over. We were still pretty exhausted, so we stayed on the highway for the entire distance. After a little over three hours of driving, we arrived home, exhausted but satisfied.

So, that's it for now and we hope to be able to report to you again soon :)

Thanks for reading and see you soon!!!