Where to Stay in Lausanne, Canton de Vaud

What is Lausanne known for?

The Olympic Museum on the Lake Geneva shore gives Lausanne its description as the Olympic capital, while the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland convenes here without the city being the country's capital. Galleries and archives fill the balance. The Collection de l'art brut, Photo Elysée, mudac, and the Swiss Film Archive sit alongside Lausanne Cathedral and Château Saint-Maire above the water.

What are the main landmarks in Lausanne?

The cathedral holds the hill. Lausanne Cathedral and Château Saint-Maire crown the older streets above Lake Geneva, with the Ale Tower a third piece of old stone and the Tour de Sauvabelin and Tour Haldimand standing among the city's other towers. Aquatis keeps the fish.

Naturéum, the Cantonal Museum of Geology in Lausanne, the Cantonal monetary museum, and the Musée de la Chaussure carry the smaller collections.

What is the history of Lausanne?

No founding year stands on the record. What survives instead is a Roman name, Lousonna, carried into the present by the Lausanne-Vidy Roman Museum and the Villa romaine du Prieuré. Two layers of the city are visible at once.

Lausanne Cathedral, Château Saint-Maire, and the Ale Tower are the surviving stone landmarks of the older town on the hill above Lake Geneva, and the Cantonal Museum of Archeology and History keeps what has come out of the ground. The modern roles arrived later. Lausanne is the capital of the canton of Vaud, the French-speaking canton of Switzerland that runs along Lake Geneva, and the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland convenes in the city although the country's capital lies elsewhere.

Sport gave it a second title. The Olympic Museum accounts for the description of Lausanne as the Olympic capital, and around it a run of collections has accumulated: the Collection de l'art brut, Photo Elysée, mudac, the Swiss Film Archive, and the Hermitage Foundation among them. The canton's museums carry the rest, among them the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, the Cantonal Botanical Museum and Gardens, and the Naturéum.

Aquatis and the Cantonal museum of Zoology extend the same habit into the sciences.

Where is Lausanne?

Hills fall to the lake. Lausanne stands on rising ground at the northernmost point of Lake Geneva, roughly halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and looks across the water at the French town of Évian-les-Bains. The city sits 51.7 kilometres north-east of Geneva.

Canton de Vaud runs inland behind it, with the alpine Canton of the Valais and its ski slopes beyond.

What is the climate of Lausanne?

The lake does the moderating. Lausanne lies in the temperate band, so its seasons run in the ordinary northern order, and the mass of Lake Geneva below the city evens out extremes that the Alps and the Jura Mountains impose on the higher ground on either side. Snow belongs to the Valais slopes.

A city on this shore gets a gentler version of the same winter.

How do you get to Lausanne?

Vaud's transport converges here. Lausanne serves as the public transport hub of its canton, which puts Geneva, the nearest major city at 51.7 kilometres, and the ski slopes of the alpine Canton of the Valais within reach of one network. Évian-les-Bains sits across the water on the French side, so Lake Geneva itself counts as a way out of the city. The Alps begin beyond.