Europe

Gandria, Switzerland: Revisited

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I revisited Gandria, Switzerland in October 21, 2015. It’s my top favourite writing location from 2002 to 2008. It is a picturesque, old fishing village at the lakeside at the foot of Monte Bre. Located in a steep mountainside, in a community of narrow cobbled stone streets, inaccessible to cars with a delightful surprise in any corner, where you can find time to relax in serenity under a temperate climate.

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Gandria is where I wrote most of my poems in my poetry book, Rhythm of a Heart, Music of a Soul and some of my current WIP work in progress novel manuscripts.

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Gandria is in Lugano, a city which left many, unforgettable, challenging years in my life as a divorcee, and enjoyable memories in the young hearts of my good, caring, wise and strong willed daughters. ~ Angelica Hopes

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Home Is Where the Heart Is

My older two daughters have the pearl of Lugano in their heart, the ABC’s of memory from childhood to their growing years. They wisely know that you can have a heart in the pearl of your birthplace yet the joy you treasure the most in life cannot always be geographically based but more on home based. Home based means the people you love most in your heart, regardless of time and place you choose to live.

I took this picture walking from the car park just outside the village of Gandria, with the Italian Alps in the background.

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Back in 2002 – 2008, I and my older daughters and in Autumn 2008, we used to take the public boat for tourists, hopped out in Gandria, I spend the afternoon writing then we hiked for around fifteen to twenty minutes back to Lugano. I and Camiel hiked back too in the autumn of 2008, the year before we finally moved to The Netherlands.
I used to sit on top of a folder of manuscript pages or sometimes a handy towel and wrote in this corner while my girls played in the water front. And yes, sometimes there is a swan or two swans nearby. In our water front back garden in The Netherlands, swans and cygnets would swim during spring and they know where to pass again for some bread crumbs during winter.
I taught my older two daughters the game of invisible colours in these steps.

Gandria . . . Lugano . . .

Lugano holds a special place in my heart as it defined some of the most challenging fourteen years in a home away from home but only home in my daughters’ hearts.

~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from my memoir, Landscapes of a Heart, Whispers of a Soul

. . . one day in a life of a novelist . . .

Angelica, Odyssey of a Heart

Author

Philippine-born Swiss author, poet, memoirist, aphorist, ghostwriter, multi-genre novelist, freelance writer, Indie author, publisher, and an Italian-English translator. Dedicated mother & loving wife, and a multi-lingual travel and nutritarian diet enthusiast. I love to read, write, listen to audio-books, cook, bake, reach out, and travel. Ana Angelica Abaya van Doorn Nom de plume: Angelica Hopes

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