Touring Lausanne - September 7, 2016

Our day started when we both were surprised that we woke up at the late hour of 7:00 am - we slept close to nine hours straight.  It must have been all that exploring in Geneva. Sandy says that according to her Fitbit we walked close to twelve miles yesterday. No wonder we slept so well.

We had a quick breakfast at our hotel and took the train to Lausanne to visit the Olympic Museum and also the Notre Dame Cathedral. 

CHECKING AND DOUBLE CHECKING THE MAP FOR TOURING LAUSANNE

The Olympic Museum in Lausanne house both permanent and temporary exhibits relating to sports and the Olympic movement. With more than 10,000 artifacts, the museum is the largest archive of Olympic Games in the world and attracts more than 250,000 visitors each year. It was certainly busy when we were there.

There are impressive gardens and sculptures and the museum itself has both static and interactive exhibits and several multi media movies recalling the history of the games. Definitely worth the two plus hours we spent there..

WE ENJOYED THE UNIQUE GARDEN SCULPTURES

INCREDIBLE MUSEUM EXHIBITS - STATIC AND INTERACTIVE DISPLAYS

Icelandic team dress

Years of Olympic torches

A video history of the opening of the games

NINETEENTH CENTURY RACING BIKE - ONE GEAR, NO BRAKES!

After visiting the museum we literally walked uphill for quite some time including what seemed to be hundreds of steps to visit the Cathedral. 

Apparently everyone can ride a bike in Lausanne. Along our route to the Cathedral we saw this woman getting on her electric bike dressed in her house dress and sandals. She also had a fresh croissant tucked neatly between her lips.  Definitely the photo of the day.

Climbing lots of stairs makes one hungry. Lucky us, we found some lovely Swiss Chocolate to curb our appetite. 

 

Once we arrived at the Cathedral we were treated to stunning views of the city of Lausanne and the lake below. The cathedral is impressive and dates back to 1275 AD and stands over the entrance to the medieval city and the old town of Lausanne.

Once again, we walked our little legs off and according to Sandy's Fitbit we clocked a little over eight miles today. 

We ended our day with a lovely dinner with newly arrived bicycle club members. (pictured L/R) Steve & Darlene, Moi, Sandy, Nicole & Murray and Ken. More arriving tomorrow.. 

We are not sure what we will be doing tomorrow as we just found out that the city of Geneva is celebrating a city-wide holiday and many places will be closed. We think the UNited Nations may be open, if not, we may just go see the fountain and the flower clock and have a picnic in the park. Stay tuned.