Pista Go-Kart Locarno-Magadino

In Magadino, near Locarno in Ticino, the Pista Go-Kart Locarno-Magadino lays out an outdoor circuit amid the greenery of the plain. Adults drive karts of two hundred and seventy cubic centimetres and nine horsepower, with four-stroke engines, able to reach seventy kilometres an hour, while children get minikarts of ninety-seven cubic centimetres capped at forty kilometres an hour. A real open-air track, bathed in the mild climate of the southern Alps.

Adults drive from fourteen, and children from eight to thirteen are welcomed from one metre thirty, with slots reserved for them on certain days. The track opens in the afternoon during the warm season, from May to August, in a summer mood typical of Ticino. It is an easy-going sporting outing, to combine with a day by the lake.

Magadino borders Lake Maggiore, on a green plain between mountains and water, a short way from Locarno and Ascona, prized for their Mediterranean mildness. The region lives to the rhythm of the sun and the Locarno film festival. The Pista Go-Kart Locarno-Magadino adds a dose of open-air motorsport there, in one of the finest settings of Italian Switzerland.

The slots reserved for children in mid-afternoon make it an outing built for families, where young and old find a kart to their size. The green setting of the Magadino plain, between lake and mountains, adds to the pleasure of driving in the open air. With Locarno, Ascona and the Ticino valleys within reach, karting easily rounds out a sunny stay by Lake Maggiore.