Aubonne
The village is placed perfectly for accessing the entire coast of the Lake Leman. The next morning we walked very early because, the hotel having to be closed that day, the breakfast was served only till 8:30 am. The forecast was showing a slightly better weather in Lausanne than in Geneva so we left early and at 9:30 am we were already parked in one of Lausanne’s parking places, Montbenon, that ended costing CH20 for the entire day.
A policeman followed me on a motorbike till I got in front of the parking and I don’t know if because I did something or he wanted to help me park. He just pointed me where to park and left.
We got from there to the info office in the train station from where we got a map and info about the city and we headed to the harbor on the lake in Ouchy, a quartier of the city 20 min walk from the station.
The harbor is nicely architectured, modern and efficient with a lot of water, fountains and bridges. After feeding some swans that were fed already by entire school trips we bought tickets for a cruise with a boat on Lake Leman. Actually except a sunset dinner cruise there are technically no exact cruises on the lake, but regular boats making connections between various cities. You decide for a boat that goes to a particular itinerary and you do your pick based on how long would you like to spend on the boat. There are various combinations of cities that connect cities toward the western side of the lake or the Eastern side of it or boats that cross to Evian in France, going straight across the lake. Also grace to the permits we purchased at the beginning of the trip kids ride free.
We picked a tour that was connecting the towns of the other side of the lake returning to Villenneauve, Montreaux and Vevey back to Laussane, a tour that costs CH48/person. Our boat was leaving at 12:30 pm that gave us enough time to visit the museums around. We went for the Olympic Park and Museum, in a city that is host the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee. The museum’s building and its park is definitely worth a visit even without visiting the collections and exhibits. It has a huge cube in the middle of the spiral staircase on which is projected scenes from the Olympics. The staircase brings you on a top terrace restaurant with great views over the park and the lake. Right near the Olympic park is Elysee Palace, a small chateau in a park where it was a Felini exhibit.
City Hall, Lausanne
We returned to the harbor strolling on the lake’s promenade picking up on the way some sandwiches to have them on board. The boat, a revived old steamer called Swiss, left on time. The weather was perfect. The cruise on the lake proved to be the highlight of the visit in this part of Switzerland in spite of a little bit of the expected rain around Chateau de Chillon. The shore’s landscape is impressive. The Swiss are extremely industrious and no patch of land is left untended. If the land is not built up there is planted with vineyards. Entire mountains slopes are completely planted, the domain having a small chateau in the middle. In between these domains are small villages with preserved architecture. Trains and road are crossing the shores like in a scaled model. You see trains on all levels crossing the terrain looking like toy trains, all colorful and precise like everything Swiss made. The buildings are encroaching on land, but you can see vineyards, practically inside the city, among developments.
The cruise took a little less than 3 hours and brought us back to Ouchy. After a quick stop in the schick Movenpick Hotel in the harbor we left toward the old city. In its middle the Lausanne cathedral is standing proud a platform overlooking the city. Lausanne and Geneva were the main centers of Calvinism in the 16th century and the cathedral was reformed during that time. Reading the caption of an exhibit about Peter Vyck?? You can realize the real war that happened here during the Reformation. Interesting is the fact that the Reformation was not only a movement against the religious authority and control of the Catholic Chruch and their monopoly on spiritual power but also against the control the Church was having on people. The people wanted to leave their own lives without the Church involvement and they use the adoption of the Reformation in this sense. In a way they wanted a separation of powers at the moment that something like this could not be described. Besides the Cathedral there are several other interesting buildings but, over all ,the “old city” is kind of new and not so interesting. Climbing down in front of Palais de Rumine, the location of a collection of museums, I had an interesting discussion with a girl who was putting flyers on benches for an eco campaign, one of the items was to drink water from fountains and not from bottles. I saluted the initiative and I already drank from these local fountains. I always thought that selling bottled water in countries that have clean water is the biggest rip off of all. It is shameless and it can happen because people are stupid and buy into it!
Not finding the city too enticing we decided to leave and go back to our hotel in Aubonne. We opened the hotel, closed for the day, left some stuff in the room and left to find a place to have dinner. The lake was relatively close and we drove to Alleman, a small village on the lake that has also a Chateau. There we found a jewel of a restaurant, “La Pecherie” with tables right on the beach near the water where we had a memorable dinner. Among romantic couples, one large table was filled with officers of the Swiss army. We stayed till after 10 pm and we were chased to the hotel by some drops of rain that transformed itself soon in an all night heavy storm with thunder and lighting.
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