* Irene's Country Corner * - Around the World - Switzerland

 

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Lausanne

© Irene. Not for download. Please, visit Graphics by Irene if you like this graphic. 

© Irene. Not for download. Picture scanned from a postcard I bought in Lausanne.

Switzerland's San Francisco

 

Lausanne, a city of incredibly steep hills that has developed tiered above the lake on a succession of compact, south-facing terraces. Much of the city is still wooded, there are plenty of parks, and the tree-lined lakefront promenades spill over with lush, beds of vibrantly colorful flowers.

Lausanne is known for the long tradition of fostering intellectual and cultural innovation. From medieval times, Lausanne has stood at the Swiss cultural avant-garde. Back then, the cathedral crowned the city the most influential of the region; it still sits resplendant on an Old Town hill, the country’s most impressive Gothic monument.

After the Reformation, students flocked to Lausanne’s pioneering university, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, restless Romantics sought and found inspiration in the setting and the life of Lausanne.

Lausanne remains a grand-looking city, full of shuttered foursquare mansions and ritzy shopping streets, and with its own glamorous lakeside resort of Ouchy.

 

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Aiding the dynamism, a defining feature of the city is its international population of students, attracted to the prestigious University of Lausanne, Switzerland’s biggest, and the French-language arm of the Federal Institute of Technology. Hundreds of language schools and private academies enhance the city’s reputation for learning, along with the world-famous École Hotelière, training ground for top chefs and hotel staff.

Since 1874 Lausanne has been the home of the highest Swiss federal court of appeal, and has also attracted many multinational companies, not least Philip Morris, who chose Lausanne as a base from which to sell their Marlboro, Chesterfield, Suchard and Toblerone brands to Europe and Africa.

However, the feature which the tourist office has lit upon is that the International Olympic Committee has been headquartered in Lausanne since 1915, and has attracted to the city an array of world governing bodies in sports ranging from chess to volleyball; they tout the city as “Olympic Capital” and endlessly plug the rather vapid Olympic Museum.

© Irene. Not for download. Picture scanned from a postcard I bought in Lausanne.

 

 

 

© Irene. Not for download. Please, visit Graphics by Irene if you like this graphic.

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This page was created on: February 28, 2002.
Last updated on: July 8, 2008.
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Information about Lausanne from the Rough Guide to Switzerland, by Rough Guides Ltd, London, from
Switzerland.isyours.

 

 

© Irene. Not for download. Please, visit Graphics by Irene if you like this graphic.

 

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