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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 cafe-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 Sevelin). 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-ChEne, 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 Marche
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
Musee 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
chEteau
, 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 sonne 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 BergiEres (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
Musee de l'Elysee
, an outstanding museum of photography in the same park (Tues-Sun 10am-6pm, Thurs until 9pm; Sfr5;
www.elysee.ch
).
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