Lausanne, Switzerland - July 10th to 12th, 2025
Lausanne is a pretty large city, situated on the banks of Lake Geneva. It is currently the headquarters for the International Olympic Committee, but also has a rich history. The city is hilly, so wandering the streets is a good workout.
Thursday was a travel day, from Basel, Switzerland, where we disembarked the Viking river cruise ship at the end of our Rhine Getaway cruise, to Lausanne, also in Switzerland. It was only about a two and a half hour trip by train, so we were in no hurry to leave the ship. Many of the passengers had to get up early to catch early flights home. After breakfast, we hung out in the ship’s lounge until lunch was served, since we had to vacate our room by 9 am. The cleaning staff needed to get the rooms ready for the next cruise.
We initially thought we would take an Uber to the Basel train station, but when we put Lausanne in for a destination in our SBB phone app, it suggested a tram which was just a 12 minute walk from the ship. SBB is the app for the Swiss Federal Railways (Schweizerische Bundesbahnen). We had purchased an 8 day Swiss Travel Pass, which started on July 10, 2025. It gave us unlimited travel on trains, buses, and boats in Switzerland. So the tram ride was no additional charge.
We strapped our luggage to our backs and walked over to the tram. Our ship was docked on the east side of the river, in Basel-Klybeck, near the shipping port. We caught the T8 tram from the Kleinhüningen stop. It was about a 24 minute tram ride and there was a tram every 8 minutes. It probably wasn’t the fastest way to get to the train station, as it made 14 stops along the way, but it was nice to see some of the city and how the locals lived. We even passed by a few interesting buildings on the way. Unfortunately, the tram was busy, and we stood the whole way there.
The tram dropped us off right in front of the train station. The SBB app showed us the walking route from the tram stop right to the platform inside the train station where to catch our train. We had to take two trains to get to Lausanne. The first one took us to Olten in 27 minutes, where we switched trains. The second one was close to two hours long.
The first train was nicer than the second one. It was a double decker, and we got seats up on the second level. The second train was only one level and it was more crowded. We thought we were being smart and went to the second car from the front of the train, as the SBB app said those cars were less crowded. We’re not sure where the app gets its information from and how often it’s updated, because we couldn’t get two seats together. At least we had seats. After a couple of stops, some people got off and we were able to sit across from each other the rest of the way.
Ann walked up to the restaurant car to buy drinks. She walked through a couple of the first class cars. They looked more comfortable, as the seats had more room and the cars were not as crowded. However, we bought our travel pass for second class only, to save money.
Both trains went through quite a few long tunnels. However, the second train then went alongside Bielersee and Lac de Neuchâtel. Both were large, beautiful lakes, surrounded by mountains, with turquoise-colored water and sailboats gliding across. Simply gorgeous.
Lausanne sits on the north side of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman), but the train station is about half a mile from the lake. Once we arrived, we strapped our luggage onto our backs again and walked to our hotel, Hotel Swiss Wine by Fassbind. It was only about a 15 minute walk, but it was uphill the whole way. Temperatures were in the upper 20’s Celsius (80’s Fahrenheit), so it was a rather warm walk.
When we checked into the hotel, we learned that the hotel did not have air conditioning. Our room was up on the 5th floor, five flights up, but luckily they had an elevator. The room was a little warm when we arrived, but after we opened up the window and turned on the ceiling fan, it cooled down to a comfortable temperature. There was also a desk fan that we turned on that night to help us sleep. Lausanne is a busy, noisy, city and we had to close the window at night to keep the noise out. Thankfully, the window is well insulated and we couldn’t hear any noise when it was shut.
After freshening up a little bit, we headed out for dinner. There was a kebab and pizza place, called Ozizo, a couple of blocks away that had decent ratings, so we went there.
Switzerland has four official languages, French, German, Italian, and Romansch. Lausanne is in the French-speaking area of Switzerland. We walked into Ozizo and tried to order Kebab Durum in French. “Bonjour! Deux Kebab Durum, s’il vous plait (hello! Two Kebab Durum, please)”. So far, so good. Then they started asking us questions that we didn’t understand. So we negotiated what language to speak in. “Parlez vous anglais? (Do you speak English?)” “Non, Deutsch?” (No, German?). “Ja, wir können Deutsch!” (Yes, we can speak German). There were two employees behind the counter. One could speak German and the other could not. So we spent the rest of the time speaking German with one of them. They asked us where we were from, Zürich perhaps? They were surprised when we told them we were Americans.
The Kebab Durum is a wrap filled with typical döner kebab ingredients. What they were trying to ask us is what kind of meat did we want, beef or chicken? We took both, with all the fixings and the spicy sauce. The wraps were delicious, much better than the döner kebabs we had in York (York, England - May 20th to 22nd and June 20th to 23rd, 2025) and Amsterdam (Amsterdam, Netherlands - June 29th to July 3rd, 2025), but those were fast food chains. We were hoping to have something on the lighter side, but the wraps were huge, even by American standards. We managed to finish them anyway because they tasted too good to waste.
When we returned to the hotel, Keith bought a beer from the front desk. They only had one kind of beer, Swiss beer, but lots of varieties of wine. Well, what did you expect from a hotel called Hotel Swiss Wine? The can said “Swiss Beer”, but we can’t find any brewery that makes that, so we’re not sure what it was. We forgot to take a picture of the can or read it more closely.
Friday, we wandered the streets of Lausanne. The breakfast room at the hotel was in a glass sun room with views of the cathedral.
So we started by walking over to the cathedral. We didn’t go inside, as we had seen lots of cathedrals in the past week.
From there, we made our way over to Parc de Mon Repos. It was a peaceful park with plenty of trees for shade.
As we headed back east, we walked through Promenade Derrière-Bourg and over to Esplanade de Montbenon. From the esplanade, there were nice views of the lake. At the far end of the esplanade was Casino de Montbenon. It was originally built in 1908 and currently is a cultural event center with a restaurant.
It was getting close to lunch time, so we made our way over to the Co-op near Saint-Laurent church in the town center. The center of town is a wonderful network of pedestrian streets lined with shops. The Co-op is a department store, with a cafeteria-style restaurant on the 5th floor. They had a lovely salad bar, which we both got along with a hard roll each. In addition, Keith got a small bowl of fruit. We couldn’t find where the butter was for our rolls. So Ann felt so proud of herself when she asked for the butter in French. “Pardon. Où est beurre?” (Excuse me, where is butter? - Ann was missing “le” for “the”). The staff pulled one out and asked “un” (one)? “Deux” (two), Ann replied.
There were tables outside with views over the city. However, like most outside tables in Europe, smoking was allowed, and there usually was at least one person smoking. It seems like there are more people in Europe that smoke than in the States, or perhaps it just seems that way since there are more places where it is allowed.
After lunch, we made our way to the lake. It was over a mile away. When we reached the lake, Ann stopped at an ice cream stand to get a cone, one scoop of mango and one of chocolate. It hit the spot on the hot day.
We walked along the shore line over to the Olympic Museum. We didn’t pay to go inside, but explored the gardens outside. They had some interesting interactive displays outside. You could pick up a shot put to see how heavy it was. Or you could try to run the 100 meter track, with lights along the side lighting up to show you how fast the record holder went down the track.
We had saved our plastic bottles from our drinks at lunch, hoping to see a water fill station along the way. By the time we reached the Olympic Museum, we had not yet spotted any. As we were walking up the stairs, Ann’s bottle fell out of her long leg pocket on her hiking pants. So she decided to throw it away. No sooner did she do that, there was a potable water fill station. In fact, there were quite a few scattered around the Olympic Museum gardens. So Keith was able to refill his bottle, but Ann had to buy another drink at the museum. Throughout the rest of the day, we managed to find several water fill stations, which was good since it was such a warm day.
From the museum, we headed back along the shoreline to the marina, then we started our way back up the hill, stopping to check out the botanical gardens. They were not the most spectacular gardens we’ve ever seen, but it was nice. We enjoyed sitting down in the shade and watching all of the frogs in the lily pad pond.
We worked our way up to Café Romand, near the Saint François church. However, it was only 5 pm and they didn’t start serving dinner until 6:30 pm. Ann was fighting a cold and was ready to call it a day. She was fading fast. We had walked over 11 miles that day, with the equivalent of climbing 46 floors or roughly 460 feet. So instead, we headed over to Pizzeria Da Carlo.
Keith ordered a pasta dish called Tagliatelles Da Carlo with mushrooms and ham. Ann had the Pulcinella, which was a pizza folded over in half with spicy salami, smoked mozzarella, and ricotta. It was similar to a calzone, but somehow a little different. When we went to pay for the bill, Keith tried to round up the amount to 61 francs in French, saying “soixante et onze, s’il vous plait”. The waiter corrected him. “Onze” is eleven, so what Keith said was 71 (sixty and eleven) in French. What he should have said was “soixante et un” (sixty and one). Merci!
Back at the hotel, Keith bought a bottle of wine at the front desk, called Chasselas Tradition from winery Beetschen. Since Ann was not feeling up to it, only Keith drank some of it. There was a refrigerator in our room, so he saved the rest of the bottle for the following evening.
Saturday, was the day of our Chocolate Train excursion. It left from Montreux, about half an hour away by train from Lausanne. We got up at 6:30 am and ate breakfast at the hotel before walking down to the Lausanne train station about 7:50 am. We arrived at the train station in time to catch the 8:12 am train to Montreux. If we missed that, there was still another train after that which would still have gotten us to Montreux on time.
We checked in for our tour on Platform 6 in the Montreux station at 9:15 am. They checked our tickets and gave us lanyards with a tag that listed all of the important meeting times throughout the day. The train left the station promptly at 9:43 am.
Even though it is called the Chocolate Train, the day was just as much about cheese as it was about chocolate, and most of the transportation was on a bus, not a train.
We started out on the scenic train Golden Pass Express, from Montreux to Montbovon, about an hour ride. The Golden Pass Express train is one of the scenic trains in Switzerland that require a reservation. Most of the trains in the country do not require reservations. The full route of Golden Pass Express is from Montreux to Interlaken, taking three hours and 15 minutes.
As the train left Montreux, it started climbing up the mountain, winding its way back and forth as it climbed. Even though we spent some time in tunnels, there were plenty of beautiful views back down to Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) and of the mountains. On the train, they gave us a bread roll, a piece of Callier chocolate, and our choice of a hot drink (hot chocolate, coffee, or tea). They had a variety of teas to choose from. Ann had the lemon and ginger tea.
When we arrived in Montbovon, we immediately transferred to a double-decker bus that transported us to the Gruyère cheese museum (Maison Gruyère). We were given audio guides in the language of our choice which guided us through the exhibits in the museum. Part of the museum looked down into the factory where we could see the cheese being made. They also gave us cheese samples so we could try to tell the difference between different aged cheeses, 3 months, 6 months, and 9 months.
From there, they drove us over to the village of Gruyère. It is a small town, just a couple of blocks long, but very cute. If you drive there yourself, be sure to get there early, because the parking lots on the edge of town were pretty full by the time we left.
We arrived at Gruyère at 12:10, where we were given two hours to explore the village. At the end of the street were a couple of museums and a castle. The admission to the museums and castle were not included in the Chocolate Train ticket, but, if you have a Swiss Travel Pass, you can get in for free.
We opted to stop at one of the cafés, Restaurant Des Remparts, for lunch. The menu consisted mostly of cheese dishes, from Swiss fondue to raclette. We chose the croûte au forage au gruyère. Ann had the regular one while Keith had the one with jambon and œuf (Ham and egg). A croûte is a slice of bread, covered with cheese (in this case, gruyère cheese), and baked. They were brought out in a ceramic dish, with the cheese still bubbling. The croûte were garnished on top with a pickle, a pickled pearl onion, and a tomato slice. Our order also came with a nice green salad. Very tasty.
After lunch, we walked up to the castle. Since we could get inside for free, we went in. But we didn’t explore much inside the castle, just the courtyard, the ramparts, and the formal garden outside. Because we spent so much time having lunch, it was time to walk back to the bus.
At the parking lot, there were free toilets. Each one would clean itself between visitors, including flushing the toilet and hosing down the interior. If it was cleaning, you couldn’t open the door. It was a little unnerving that it detected someone was inside, automatically locking the door for you. You had to push a button for the door to open for you to exit. If someone walked in as you walked out, it wouldn’t go through its cleaning cycle.
After Gruyère, the bus took us over to the Cailler Chocolate factory (Maison Cailler) in Broc. Again, they handed us an audio tour in the language of our choice. However, this tour was much more extensive than the cheese tour. The tour went through the history of chocolate and the whole process of making it. Unfortunately, there is very limited viewing of the factory itself. The tour also included sampling of about a dozen different types of their chocolate.
It took us about an hour to get through the tour. We were at the chocolate factory about an hour and 45 minutes, which gives you plenty of time to get through the tour and browse the store.
Then it was about a 45 minute ride back to Montreax. They dropped us off right next to the train station. It was only 5 pm, so we decided to check out Montreax a little bit before taking the train back to Lausanne. There were about half a dozen trains running per hour to get back, so there was no rush.
From the train station, we headed down to the lake, just a few blocks away. The Montreux Jazz Festival was in full swing. The festival lined the shoreline with food and bar booths along with various stages for performers. Most of the headliners needed tickets, but there were some stages that were free to the public to attend. In addition, there were some street performers playing. We stopped and listened for a while to the Swiss Band. The band consisted of employees from Swiss Air airlines. They played a variety of big band and swing tunes.
Since we had been eating so much cheese and chocolate during the day, we were not hungry for dinner. So we decided to skip it. After walking up and down the shoreline, we headed back to the train station and caught the next train back to Lausanne, calling it a night.
Lausanne had a lot to offer. A beautiful lakefront surrounded by mountains. Historic buildings, gardens, and Olympic Museum. Connections to cheese, chocolate, and a jazz festival. What more could you ask for? Well, actually, we generally like small towns over large cities, so we were ready to move on to a smaller town in Switzerland, in fact, much smaller. Our next stop would be Gimmelwald.
Check out our related video: Lausanne, Switzerland
(Ann)