Lausanne explored

Overcast, but no rain today, so I took the stopping train from Territet to Lausanne for a photo outing. I have little recollection of going right through the Old Town on the north side of the station on my previous visits, as these centred around visiting Christchurch, the fine Victorian Anglican church on the south side of the station, and walking from there down to Ouchy and the lake.

Lausanne is built on a succession of steep hills rising up from Lac Leman. On the summit of one is the 12th century Cathedral and just below it, the original university buildings on one side and the museum on another. The university, founded in 1537 and very much a fruit of the reforming work of Pierre Viret, who is to Lausanne what Calvin is to Geneva, and Farel to Neuchatel. It has fourteen and a half thousand students, and its new campuses have spread out across the coastal plain outside the city as far as Ecublens.

The Cathedral is a 12th century masterpiece, whose nave resembles that of Geneva's, but Lausanne's chancel ends in an apse with ambulatory. The reformation stripped the building of ornament and oratories, save one small one with an ancient stone altar in an east facing niche of the south transept, more of an historic artefact than a place of devotion. The stark uncluttered simplicity of the building displays the sheer beauty of its medieval architecture. 

A Gothic south porch has been 're-purposed', by closing it off as an entrance, glazing it, and introducing cushions for the porch stone benches and some simple soft furnishings, to make it a meeting room or prayer group space. There were three organs, one in the west end gallery over the entrance porch, the other two at either end of the nave. 

Many of the streets of the Old Town are paved with cobbles and pedestrianised. There's a modest strip of a park dedicated in honour of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and a huge plaza in front of the University main building which hosts an open air market. By the time I'd climbed up this far it was winding up for the day, but I was amazed at how many stalls there were selling cheese.

The Swiss Coop hosts a five storey department store with a food supermarket in the basement, and restaurant with balcony at the top. It gives a great view of the very varied city-scape. Several bridges span the steep valley between hills. Everywhere is interestingly built over making best possible use of urban housing space in times past. The modern Metro system has its underground terminus up in the Old Town. One line descends to Ouchy, the other reaches out to the University campuses. One of the high arched road bridges has beneath it a bridge carrying a Metro line out from underground on its way west. There's lots to see. It's an interesting place, and I look forward to a further visit when we return here in August.

Curiosity led me to take the westbound Metro for its half hour journey to its other terminus in the main line train station at Renans, which hosts a couple of branch lines into the Jura to the north, as well as the Metro. The station is currently being upgraded, and several areas are cordoned off and shrouded with plastic. The range of my Carte Journalière extended as far as Renans, which meant I was able to use a main line train regional, to take me right back to Territet. This meant using the station subway to reach a far platform. Normally no problem, but the subway entrance from the platform was one of the fenced off zones, and there was no signage to say how to reach its other entrance on the station forecourt. No signage to say there was a subway at all. Locals know all this but visitors, birds of passage like me? Normally the Swiss are superb on signage. I suspect this was a problem caused by thoughtless building contractors.

I reached Territet at half past four, went into Church House, collected a shopping bag, then returned to Montreux on the 201 bus that stops just outside every ten minutes. This way I was just in time to get some food items I missed out on yesterday, before the Metro Centre shut - five on Saturdays. I've been caught out before.

This evening's BBC Four double episode of Engrenages/Spiral was a brilliant as ever. Events unfold at a pace with several stories developing and intersecting concurrently. It's beautifully edited and engages attention well. I thought the tenth episode would be the last, but apparently not. Two more to come, when I'm back home again.