Lausanne

We arrived in Lausaane after a short flight from Amsterdam to Geneva, followed by a scenic train journey around Lake Geneva. Our hotel, the Lausanne Palace, is only 400m from the station, and so we thought we'd walk, bags in tow. Of course, Switzerland is quite hilly, and when a kindly Swiss man saw me attempting to haul my suitcase up the steep cobblestone street, he intervened and recommended we get the Metro. We now know that is the sensible way to get around (or up and down) Lausanne but, new to the country, we opted for a cab (by car it's a bit more than 400m!).

The Lausanne Palace is quite fancy and our first hotel on the trip. Adrian had advised them it would be our anniversary during our stay, and so our spacious room was sprinkled with rose petals, and we had been left a plate of chocolate dipped strawberries and plums. The view from the room is spectacular, overlooking Lake Geneva, across to France and the Alps.

The first afternoon, we checked out the nearby area called Flon, which you take a lift from a pedestrian overpass to get to (another way these clever Swiss have overcome the steepness of their city). Flon is a shopping and entertainment area, although most places were closed being Sunday. That night, we went for a lovely meal at a steak restaurant, including a bone marrow dish that was naughty but nice! Although this was a fairly casual dinner (we have something much more fancy booked for our last night), prices in Switzerland are exorbitant, and this place was no exception, but we're on holidays!

The next day, feeling a lull in our tourist mojo, we set out late. We walked to the impressive Lausanne Cathedral with its beautiful rose window (one of the most important rose windows in Europe, apparently), made all the more atmospheric because the organist was practising (listen to the video). We then wandered around the steep cobbled pedestrian streets of what seems to be the old town. The buildings are large and impressive with high-end shops. The Swiss can obviously afford their exorbitant prices.

Waning, we stopped at a boulangerie and had quiche for an early lunch, which energised us to walk down the hill to the lake, and an area called Ouchy for a lakeside view as the sun started to break through. Now in the know, we got the very convenient Metro back up to the hotel (top to bottom, the elevation change is about 200m, over 2kms) for a rest afternoon.

For dinner, we settled for a light dinner of a charcuterie platter at a wine bar called Le 20 (i.e., Le Vin, do you see what they did there?) having weighed ourselves on the scales in our hotel room that morning!Read more