Melide and Swissminiatur

Melide is a village on Lake Lugano, on the causeway that crosses the lake, and it contains Swissminiatur — the whole of Switzerland at 1:25.

The park has around 130 models: the Federal Palace in Bern, the Château de Chillon, the Kapellbrücke, the Matterhorn, the Munot, the abbey at St. Gallen, the Bellinzona castles, Zurich’s churches — laid out on 14,000 square metres of garden with 15,000 real plants, many of them dwarf conifers pruned to scale.

Running through it are 3.5 km of model railway, with eighteen trains, plus funiculars, cable cars, boats on the model lakes and an airport. It opened in 1959 and has been added to ever since.

Is it worth it?

It depends entirely on who you are.

With children — yes, unreservedly. It is the best two hours of a Ticino trip for anyone under twelve, and the trains are the reason.

As a planning tool — better than you would expect. Seeing the country’s landmarks laid out geographically at a scale you can walk round in an hour clarifies where things actually are, which no map quite does.

As an adult with no particular interest in models — an hour, pleasantly, and then the lake.

It is the sort of attraction that is easy to be superior about and rather good when you get there. The modelling is meticulous, and the buildings were made from measured drawings.

Practical

• Open roughly mid-March to early November, closed in winter.
• Allow one to two hours; there is a café and a picnic area.
• The lake boats stop at Melide, which is the pleasant way to arrive.
• Paid entry, with a family rate; not included in transport passes.

Getting there

• By train — Lugano to Melide is about six minutes; Zurich about two and a half hours via the Gotthard Base Tunnel.
• By boat — from Lugano in half an hour.
• By car — the A2 runs over the causeway; there is parking at the park.

Around Melide

• Morcote — fifteen minutes along the shore, arcaded and steep, and regularly voted the prettiest village in Switzerland
• Monte San Salvatore — the funicular from Lugano, with the whole lake below
• Monte San Giorgio — across the water, UNESCO-listed for its Triassic marine fossils, with the museum at Meride
• Lugano — six minutes, and the reason most people are in Ticino at all