Through My Lens: Bellinzona’s Castles in the Mist

This is Bellinzona, Switzerland, and hands down one of my favourite places I’ve ever been.

I’d never heard of it before my dad found out about a local carnival called Carnevale Rabadan and decided we should go.
We took a FlixBus from Milan, stayed overnight, and ended up in the middle of a full-on street party—music, costumes, dancing, everything.

The next morning felt like a different place entirely. Schools from all over the region brought their kindergartners in to parade through the town in costume. It went from wild to wholesome in the space of about 12 hours.

We spent the morning walking around the three castles, which sit just above the city. I took this photo while heading down a stone stairway late morning.

The mist was still clinging to the hills, and the view framed perfectly between the castle walls. The towers, the layered hills, even the red house at the bottom—it all looked like something out of a storybook.

🔍 How I Took This Image

📱 Camera: Samsung S21 Ultra
📆 Month: February
🕙 Time: Late morning
📍 Location: Bellinzona, Switzerland
🎨 Edited: Adobe Lightroom – softened the haze, warmed up the hillside slightly, and kept the colour natural to let the mist do its thing.

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This is part of my Flipboard photo series “First Step: Europe Through My Lens”—real moments, accidental detours, and a few editing tweaks along the way.
No filters, no crowd-staging, just how it actually happened.