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Lausanne |
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Switzerland's
San Francisco
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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