Locarno–Madonna del Sasso funicular — Attraction in Circolo di Locarno

Fastest way to get to Orselina but far too expensive, unorganised and unfriendly staff!

It appears that the staff know that visitors/tourists take the cable car no matter what to get as fast as possible up to Orselina and after a short walk to Madonna del Sasso.. but if there was an equivalent alternative nobody would use the cable car. Why? Far to expensive! An adult ticket costs CHF 7.20 or about EUR 7. Even the passengers are queuing, there is nobody at the counter selling tickets so that the next load of 70 passengers are ready to board. NO! You have to wait for the person to come down with the cable car, step into the little box and sell tickets to the waiting visitors. That's a total no-go for me. How little service orientation is that!?! While I was taking the ride up to Orselina, a foreign family with little kids took the cable car and stood at the other end of where the 'tram engineer" was standing (at the head of the cable car). When the kids where playing with the instruments and the break wheel at other end of the car, all of a sudden the engineer was screaming all the way across the car scolding in bad Italian words the "other end of the car". Nobody, at least I didn't get who he addressed. Doesn't matter anyway. Fact is, that's not the way to treat people. Be nice and appreciate people paying CHF 7.20 for a return ticket and a roughly 1600m ride with your cable car. Please consider next time you are about to scold...

It isn't really an experience, it is more efficient transport. The carriage was packed in, you couldnt see anything from the track and it didnt really add anything to our day. It just helped us to get up to the cable car quicker. The man in the ticket office was particularly difficult. We have a discount travelcard on our Swiss pass. At the pay counter we showed the Swiss pass QR code as most places required this for scanning. He said Swiss pass is not accepted, we need to show the travel card. We didnt realise the travel card was underneath our pass and he didn't do anything to help us understand that, so we paid full price as he made it seem that the two things were different. Luckily it was only a difference of 4 CHF and not a 50%...

The funicular ride costs 8 chf for a ticket both ways, and very worth it. The Madonna del Sasso church is beautiful and has a breathtaking view. You take the ride to Orselina (a few minutes), and from there you can go down the stairs to the church.

The funicular itself is operated by one person who drives the wagon and sells tickets in between rides, so it is not the most efficient and we had to wait 15 minutes to get in, so that system could probably improved. But it was still very worth it and...