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Lausanne
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Geneva's neighbour
LAUSANNE
is interesting, attractive, worldly and well aware of how to have a good time - in short, Switzerland's sexiest city. Tiered above the lake on a succession of south-facing terraces, with the Old Town at the top, the train station and commercial districts in the middle, and the one-time fishing village of
Ouchy
, now prime territory for waterfront cafA©-lounging and strolling, at the bottom, it has incredibly steep hills which may do your legs in after a while. If so, copy the locals and catch a bus into the Joret forests above the city, and then blade or
skateboard
your way down to Ouchy: aficionados have been clocked doing 90kph through the streets this way, and when the sun shines, every public space hisses with the spinning of tiny wheels (there's also a huge indoor skatepark at 36 Avenue de SA©velin). Intrepid Lausannois have even been known to ski down to Ouchy after days of heavy snow. Switzerland's biggest university aids the youthful spirit, and a wealth of international student programmes feeds an unusually diverse, multi-ethnic makeup.
To get to the central Place St FranA§ois from the train station, either walk up the steep Rue du Petit-ChA?ne, or take the metro to Flon; from the metro platforms, lifts shuttle you up to the level of the giant Grand Pont , surfing between Place Bel-Air on the left and St FranA§ois on the right. Glitzy Rue de Bourg entices shoppers uphill from St FranA§ois; beside it, Rue St FranA§ois drops down into the valley and up the other side to the cobbled Place de la Palud , an ancient, fountained square flanked by the arcades of the Renaissance town hall. From here the medieval Escaliers du MarchA© lead up to the Cathedral (daily 8am-7pm), a fine Romanesque-Gothic jumble, its clean lines only peripherally adorned with memorials and fifteenth-century frescoes. Opposite, in the former bishop's palace, is the MusA©e Historique (Tues-Sun 11am-6pm, Thurs until 8pm; Sfr4, students free), which houses a model of old Lausanne - invaluable for grasping the city's confusing topography - plus enlightening English commentary. Further up, behind the cathedral, you'll find the fourteenth-century chA?teau , now occupied by cantonal government offices. Lausanne suffered from many medieval fires, and is the last city in Europe to keep alive the tradition of the nightwatch: every night, on the hour (10pm-2am), a sonorous-voiced civil servant calls out from the cathedral tower "C'est le guet; il a sonnA© l'heure" ("This is the nightwatch; the hour has struck"), assuring the lovers and assorted drunks below that all is well. West of the cathedral hill is Place de la Riponne , an arid expanse of concrete dominated by the splendidly ostentatious Palais de Rumine, housing the university library and various museums. Save your francs for the outstanding Collection de l'Art Brut , 11 Avenue des BergiA?res (Tues-Sun 11am-1pm & 2-6pm; Sfr6; www.artbrut.ch ), ten minutes' walk northwest of Riponne on Avenue Vinet, or bus #2 or #3 to Jomini. This unique gallery is filled with the work of "outsider" artists - ordinary people who discovered their talents late in life, the mentally ill, long-term prisoners, lone obsessives, and so on. Relating the potted biographies of each artist (often heart-rendingly sad) to the work they produced (often passionate and brilliant) is sobering, but the art also stands alone for its quality.
In a park on the Ouchy waterfront sits Lausanne's flagship
Olympic Museum
(daily 9am-6pm, Thurs until 8pm; Oct-April closed Mon; Sfr14;
www.museum.olympic.org
), a vacuous and expensive place that trumpets the Olympic ideal by means of snippets of archive footage, stirring music and Carl Lewis's old running shoes. Bypass it for the
MusA©e de l'ElysA©e
, an outstanding museum of photography in the same park (Tues-Sun 10am-6pm, Thurs until 9pm; Sfr5;
www.elysee.ch
). Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Switzerland,
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