Locarno

With its palm trees and much-hyped 2300 hours of sunshine a year, Locarno’s near-Mediterranean setting has been swooned over by visitors since the late 19th century. Switzerland’s lowest-altitude town is quite special, for sure, with an air of chic insouciance, a promenade strung along its mountain-facing lakefront and botanical gardens bristling with subtropical flowers and foliage. Beyond Lake Maggiore, there’s a pretty Renaissance Old Town to roam, which fans out from the Piazza Grande, host of a renowned music and film festival in summer.