Lausanne

Saturday, November 6 2010

We mentioned last post that London was the most last minute trip we’ve booked here in Europe.  Well, that changed a couple weekends ago when we visited Lausanne.  Ok, technically Lausanne is a stone’s throw from Geneva so not much planning was needed, but the time difference between decision to travel and when we stepped onto the train was less than 20 minutes.

Why so last minute?  Our original plan was actually to take a day-trip via boat to Yvoire (France), a quaint medieval town on Lake Geneva.  The last couple of Saturdays have been very anti-November at 63 degrees and sunny so it made for a perfect outdoor excursion.  To spare you from a long story, we had the schedule all worked out but apparently the boat decided it wasn’t running that day.  Lame.  Plan B.

Lausanne is a 30-minute train ride from Geneva--an easy day trip.  We arrived by 1pm ready to start exploring.  The city of Lausanne is built on a large, steep hill so unless you’re walking parallel with the lake, you’re most certainly going up or down some pretty steep terrain. 

Our first order of business was to take advantage of the clear day by getting some extraordinary views.  The destination for this was the Cathedrale de Lausanne, which sits on one of the highest points in Lausanne (yep, all the way up the giant hill) looking over the rest of the town below.  On our way up we were distracted by another cathedral, Lausanne Saint Francois, which had some great character in its vibrant stain glass windows and live organ music being practiced while we moseyed around.

We continued our trek up the hill toward the Cathedrale de Lausanne and were pleased to see that Lausanne continues the European theme of both quaint and elaborate architecture.  

The Cathedral de Lausanne looks pretty exquisite from the outside but surprisingly simple on the inside.  Aside from the dramatic stone designs and several panes of colorful stained glass, there were not a lot of ornate details.  The most telling signs of this profile are both the individual chairs and the bare stone ceilings.  Simple yet pleasant.

Of course, as mentioned before, the main reason we visited this cathedral was for the view!  For only 2 CHF apiece we were able to hike hundreds of steps up to the top of the tower.  What a bargain! :)  Scenic views definitely rank among the top activities for us on each of our trips.  It’s such a unique way to see a city and it’s surprising how much time we can spend taking in all the sites around us (very similar to people watching, in a way).  In our short time over here we’ve already climbed a decent share of towers and we quickly noticed that if there’s a church with a large tower, there’s likely a vantage point waiting for us.  This particular day we were lucky that the haze wasn’t too thick, giving us the opportunity to see some of the lower Alps across the lake.

Under the record high jump (8 ft .46 in)

The surprise of the day came when we visited Le Musee Olympique (The Olympic Museum) and we learned the Olympic Games international headquarters are in Lausanne!  How strange to think a town about half the size of Spokane would be the Olympic capital.  Another interesting fact is that the official languages of all of the modern Olympic games (since 1890s) are both English and French (the language spoke in Lausanne).  So in any given Olympic games, communication will be provided in those languages plus the native language of the host city (if different from English & French).  There’s a fun fact for any of you potential Jeopardy contestants.  The museum itself was very interesting and had great information and artifacts from the early games all the way surprisingly to the most recent 2010 Vancouver Olympics.  They also had an exhibit that featured the Olympic torches from each of the modern games since 1928 (the first year of the torch) as well as the medals from each of the games since 1896.  It was interesting to see how each host country chose to design these items--each very different.  We definitely recommend it for the Olympic enthusiasts out there!  We wished we would have had more time to spend there, but they kicked us out at closing time.

A bummer of the trip is that we didn’t make it to the Collection de l’Art Brut before it closed for the evening.  This museum features works of “outsider art” (work done by the schizophrenics, those with other mental heath issues, and criminals, among others).  As mentioned before, we're more history fans than art fans, but come on, this has to be worth seeing (although we have been warned otherwise by Ang’s cousin Tami).  Oh well, next time we’re in town!  We headed back to Geneva after a nice pizza dinner and enjoyed the remainder of our weekend at home.