Luxury escorts in Lugano

Lugano is where Switzerland speaks Italian and means it: the piazzas open to the lake, dinner starts later and lasts longer, and elegance is worn lightly. The financial centre — third in the country — brings a clientele that crosses from Milan as easily as from Zurich, and the city's hotels are built for exactly that traffic. An engagement here usually begins with an aperitivo on the lakefront and becomes dinner in Paradiso or up on the slopes of Monte Brè, where the terraces look down the whole length of the water.

Our Lugano companions carry both registers: Italian warmth in conversation, Swiss punctuality in everything else, with Italian and English spoken as a matter of course and German more often than visitors expect. The season matters less here than elsewhere — the lake is mild when the north is grey — but spring and autumn are the connoisseur's months, when the tables are quieter. Morcote and Gandria reward a longer evening; Milan, an hour away, makes an easy theatre or shopping excursion with the return planned properly.