The village of Agno on the Lago di Lugano is the location of the tiny, international Ticino airport, but above all the gateway to Malcantone, a gently rolling landscape with dense vegetation, which extends up to Monte Lema.

The convenient location, at the northern end of an arm of the Lago di Lugano and on the Varese - Ponte Tresa - Monte Ceneri road, meant that Agno was a market town as long ago as Roman times. Today Agno can be reached with the Ferrovia Lugano - Ponte Tresa narrow-gauge railway. The municipality has several camp sites, making full use of its lovely lakeside location.

Malcantone, a region in the Agno hinterland, is particularly appealing to hikers and bikers and marked by picturesque Ticino villages with traditional stone houses, narrow lanes, rustic grotti (Ticino taverns) as well as historic churches and quaint squares (e.g. Mugena, Vezio and Fescoggia).

One product, namely chestnuts, has provided the main source of income here for centuries and the ancient chestnut groves are still cultivated today. Thick, gnarled trees, their bases standing in a brown-yellow carpet of ferns, transform the mountain valleys into a park landscape. The «Sentiero del castagno» at Arosio leads from grove to grove and provides information on Malcantone chestnut cultivation.

Other Agno attractions are the Pfarrmuseum, with exhibits including a flag from Russian General Suvorov and the small Lugano -Ponte Tresa Railway Museum at Agno railway station (visits on request).

Close to Agno is Lugano: the largest city in the Ticino holiday region is not only Switzerland’s third most important financial centre as well as a congress, banking and business centre, but also a town of parks, flowers, villas and sacral buildings. Lugano offers the advantages of a cosmopolitan city combined with the cachet of a small town - all with a Mediterranean flair. Thanks to its mild climate, Lugano is a popular tourist destination in the spring when the camellias are in bloom.

Highlights

• Monte Lema – hiking paradise at 1621m on the border to Italy, with views of the Lago di Lugano and Lago Maggiore, Mailand (Milan) and the Swiss Alps, is reached by aerial cableway from Miglieglia.
• Kastanien-Erlebnisweg (Chestnut ExperienceTrail) - at Arosio in upper Malcantone, secluded chestnut groves and beautiful views over Malcantone.
• «Sentiero delle meraviglie» - the «Trail of Wonders» in Malcantone. Remains of former mills, forges, kilns, ore mines and castle ruins.
• Hesse Museum in Montagnola – small, intimate museum on author and adopted son of Ticino, Hermann Hesse, who lived and wrote in southern Switzerland for at least half a century.
• «Alprose» Chocolate Museum in Caslano – the history of chocolate and its production from cocoa to the finished article.
• Parco naturale del Monte Caslano – a typical section of the geological and botanical diversity of the Ticino landscape.