Discover Ticino: the only escape room inside a Swiss castle

Bellinzona’s Castelgrande is one of the three castles that belong to the UNESCO World Heritage and that characterize the “skyline” of the capital city of Canton Ticino. The castles are the only medieval military complex in the Alpine region.

An escape room is a physical adventure game in which a group of people (ideally between 2 and 6) is locked in a room and must find the way out by solving puzzles, questions and riddles. The group enters and exits together, and collaboration is the most important weapon: different logical abilities, different riddles in parallel, different characters contribute to the success. Every detail is essential to be able to find the interpretation. One can use only one instrument: one's own intellect. Intuition, deduction and teamwork are definitely protagonists of this exciting experience.

Games are set in a variety of fictional locations and themes, and cover a range of different eras. Few examples: Sherlock Holmes or Al Capone themes, Maya Room, Cuban prison, Wizard room, Deep Blue room. Usually, the various puzzles and riddles reflect the theme of the room.

This format became very popular over the last few years, and settled down as “smart leisure”. It implies strong collaboration, fast thinking, and logic abilities. Nowadays, companies may also use escape rooms for team building activities, often supervised by human resources manager, to assess employees.

There are several escape rooms in Ticino, but here we would like to present the first escape room to be located inside a Swiss castle: the “Torre Nera” (the Black Tower), in Bellinzona’s Castelgrande. It comes as no surprise that the theme chosen for this particular Escape room is the medieval one.

The plot develops in the 500s, when a handful of men had to complete an arduous mission. Something went wrong, and they were taken to a secret room awaiting trial. Now the goal is to escape from the Black Tower.

This particular project involved a number of local actors with the aim of placing the theme within the right historical context and in line with the history of the three Castles. The furniture, tools and objects used for the scenography are faithful reproduction of that period. For the plot, a history teacher and the Bellinzona Castles Supervision Commission have been involved. Players will be confronted with trunks, tools, shields and much more with the sole objective to decipher the codes that will allow them to disengage and thus solve the riddle, find the map and conquer the exit.

This room will only be open until the end of June, from Wednesday to Sunday and can host a maximum of 6 people at a time. Price for the escape room goes from CHF 60 (2 participants) to CHF 150 (6 participants).

Additional information:

https://www.bellinzonese-altoticino.ch/en/commons/details/Escape-Room-Torre-Nera/144247.html
https://www.blockati.ch/?lang=en