Lausanne, June 28th

Back to the boarder for Tucker as Mike and I went to our 2nd city on Lake Geneva, Lausanne. Lausanne is the 5th largest city in Switzerland and French is the dominate language. It's about an hour and 15 minutes from Bern, and 25 minutes from Montreux.

Sadly, we did not love our trip. Maybe it was because it was sprinkling or maybe it's because we didn't have an itinerary but we did not fall in love with this city.

First thing we did was go to Starbucks for my coffee fix.

Then we went to the downtown area. There were lots of shops, street vendors, a farmers market and a cobblestone road. It was very nice. The rain was annoying and we may have wandered around outside more if it hadn't been raining.

We then went to Cathedral of Notre Dame of Lausanne (aka Lausanne Cathedral). Construction on the church started in 1170 and finished in 1275. The church was beautiful, full of sculptures and stain glass windows. 

They had a very impressive organ. Here's some interesting facts I copied from Wikipedia.

•  It took ten years to design it and it is composed of 7000 pipes, two consoles, five claviers, and one pedalier. 
• It is the first organ in the world to be designed by a designer. 
• The first organ to contain all four of the principal organ styles (classical, French symphony, baroque, German romantique). 
• It is also the first organ manufactured by an American company (Fisk) for a European Cathedral. 
• It cost a total of 6 million Swiss francs, took 150,000 man-hours to build and weighs 40 tons.

We paid 4 francs and went to the top for a view of the city. There were 223 steps to the top.

The church has 7 bells

Another cool fact I read on Wikipedia:

Since 1405 until the present day without interruption, the city of Lausanne has maintained a lookout in the Cathedral bell tower.The lookout announces the time by yelling the hour from 10 pm to 2 am 365 days a year. The lookout cries the hour to each cardinal direction "« C'est le guet, il a sonné [dix] »". The original purpose of the lookout was to provide a warning in case of fire though it has now become a traditional function. Since 2002, the official lookout is Renato Häusler.

Afterwards we headed down to the water. It wasn't what we were expecting. It was only a pier and a park. Montreux spoiled us with restaurants and shops on the water.

Mike's lunch. Roesti!

The train station

 We typically park at the train station when we visit new cities. It's usually right in the middle of town and there's always parking spots. When we were leaving we decided to stop by the restroom. In Bern you have to pay 2 francs to use the bathroom in the train station. We were surprised you didn't have to pay here, what luck I thought. I walked in and there were 3 stalls, I can't remember if there were doors on the stalls but they were all open regardless. But there was no toilet...just a hole in the ground. What? I have never seen a hole in the ground toilet before. Girls are messy, how did this work? What if you fell over? What if you had pants and they touched the ground...I can't imagine the area around the hole was sanitary. Do you flush or is it like a port a potty? And then the final straw...there was poop on the ground. Not in the hole but in front of the stall door. Who does this? And why? I quickly turned around and proceeded to wait an hour and half till we got Tucker and went how to use my own bathroom.

I watched a youtube video and this girl had visited Milan and she also walked into a hole in the ground bathroom. So I suppose I should just get used to it and start working on my squats.

We did not check out the Olympic Museum. I'd like to see that. But I think there are many other cities to check out on Lake Geneva and we won't be back in the near future.

A hot panini vending machine in the garage parking lot