While I have been near Lago Maggiore in Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland, I have also been going up the stream of one of the rivers – leading into the Verzasca Valley. And by “going” i mean “driving”. Anyway… After a while you find yourself in front of a cement wall: the Contra dam. Wait a second, I know that sight: From this dam James Bond took his famous bungee jump in Goldeneye! In fact you can even do the jump yourself if you dare. Even though i just posted all those adventurous things i would like to do some day, bungee jumping was not one of them.

Contra dam aka the favorite place for Bond to Bungee Jump

Instead I continued going up the river, beyond the enormous artificial lake of the dam, and I reached a wonderful river bed carved into solid granite near a very old roman bridge. Wow. What a sight! Around this river you can climb along the rocks from one small stream to another. Near the bridge you see the mountains in the back and the water is flowing very slowly and is several meters deep. Some small streams go all around the rocks so it may very well happen that were you climb along would turn out to be a dead end after a while because you cannot cross the water except by swimming. Continue reading