Ascona

Ascona is a town of some 5,000 people in southern Switzerland, on the shore of Lake Maggiore.

Lake Maggiore with Ascona in the foreground

Ascona is in the Swiss Canton of Ticino.

The town is a popular tourism destination, and holds a yearly jazz festival, the New Orleans Jazz Festival Ascona .

Monte Verità

The "Monte Verità" (literally Hill of Truth) in Ascona has an important historical background: at the beginnign of the 20th century, a colony has been founded wich preached the return to nature.

A big number of artist, anarachist and other famous people have been attracted by this hill, e.g. Hermann Hesse, Erich Maria Remarque, Hugo Ball, Else Lasker-Schüler, Stephan George , Isidora Duncan , Carl Eugen Keel , Paul Klee, Rudolf Steiner, Mary Wigman, Max Piccard , Ernst Toller, Henri van de Velde , Fanny von Reventlow , Frieda and Else von Richthofen, Otto Gross , Erich Mühsam and Gustav Stresemann.

external links

• Der Monte Verità in Ascona
• Der "Heilige Berg" Monte Verità
• Museo comunale d’arte moderna Ascona
• www.ascona.ch
• www.maggiore.ch
• New Orleans Jazz Festival