Ascona

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

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

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The "Monte Verit?" (literally Hill of Truth) in Ascona has an important historical background: at the beginning of the 20th century, a colony was founded which preached the return to nature (see http://www.hippy.com/php/article-243.html para. 35).

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A large 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-Sch?ler, 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 M?hsam and Gustav Stresemann.

Switzerland: The Swiss Confederation or Switzerland (Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica) is a landlocked federal republic in Europe, bordering Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein. The country has a strong tradition of political and military neutrality, but also of international co-operation, and is hom...

Lake Maggiore: Lake Maggiore (in Italian: Lago Maggiore or lago Verbano) is the most westerly of the three large Prealpine lakes of Europe and the second largest after Lake Garda. It lies approximately at co-ordinates ....

Ticino: Ticino is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. The language is Italian in almost the entirety of the canton (except the Walser municipality of Bosco/Gurin, where it is German). It contains the Italian enclave of Campione d'Italia. Together with areas of the canton of Graub?nden it makes up the so...