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Here I show you one of the valleys of the southern Alps with a still today difficult access. The first street into Valle Onsernone in the hinterland of Locarno in the Swiss canton Ticino was built not before 1896. Still today visiting Onsernone valley by car for a tourist is a really exciting undertaking and you should be free from giddiness - even in the car. All villages are situated on the northern slope high above the bottom of this gulch-like valley - about 400 meters above Isorno river. In my photo you can see two of them, Auressio and Loco - in the lower part of the valley - situated in an altitude of about 650 meters.

These conditions made that the name of Onsernone valley was a synonym for poverty and remoteness. It was common that men and even children hired out in Italy, Germany and other countries in order to feed their families.
In the 18th and 19th century by chance some of the homecomers - probably from Flanders - established the production of straw hats and nearly all slopes of the valley were "blond from the rye and wheat fields". Straw hats made in Onsernone valley were all the rage in Europe - but at the end of the 19th century the import of cheaper products from Japan disrupted this boom.

It's interesting that in some of the really remote villages there are beautiful and noble "palazzi" - built by returned home emigrants who came into money. They never forgot their very poor home ...

Using the map view function at the left you can see the villages and the street north of the deep gorge of Isorno river.