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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 café-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 Sévelin). 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 François from the train station, either
walk up the steep Rue du Petit-Chêne, 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 François
on the right. Glitzy Rue de Bourg entices shoppers uphill from St
François; beside it, Rue St François 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 Marché 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 Musée 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 château , 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 sonné 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 Bergières
(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 Musée de
l'Elysée , an outstanding museum of photography in the same park
(Tues-Sun 10am-6pm, Thurs until 9pm; Sfr5; www.elysee.ch ).
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