17 Things to Do in Lausanne: Olympic City on Lake Geneva

Lausanne is the Olympic capital and the art city of Lake Geneva, and two days covers it: the Olympic Museum and the Ouchy waterfront on one, the cathedral, Old Town and the Plateforme 10 museums on the other. Come for museums and the lake. Skip Lausanne if you want a compact flat centre, because the city drops about 500 m from the cathedral to the water and you will feel every metre of it.

Around 140,000 people live here, which makes Lausanne Switzerland’s fourth city, and it has been the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee since 1915. That is why the Olympic Museum is here and why the city calls itself the Olympic capital. The other thing to know is that the m2, the line that climbs from the lake to the top of town, is the only underground metro in Switzerland, and it is how you avoid the hill.

The 17 things to do in Lausanne are listed below.

1. Olympic Museum, for the Games told properly, with under-16s free.
2. Lausanne Cathedral, for Gothic architecture and a live night watchman.
3. Collection de l’Art Brut, for outsider art you will not find elsewhere.
4. Esplanade de Montbenon, for the free terrace above the lake.
5. Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, for Vallotton and the Swiss holding.
6. Fondation de l’Hermitage, for exhibitions in a 19th-century villa.
7. Plateforme 10, for three museums on one ticket by the station.
8. The botanical garden, for free glasshouses on Montriond hill.
9. Château d’Ouchy and the promenade, for the lakefront walk.
10. Ouchy port, for the boats to France, Vevey and Chillon.
11. Place de la Palud, for the town hall, the fountain and the market.
12. Parc de Mon Repos, for the villa that housed the IOC.
13. Sauvabelin Tower, for 302 steps of free wooden staircase.
14. St. François Church, for the survivor of the 1368 fire.
15. Escaliers du Marché, for the covered wooden stairs to the cathedral.
16. Musée Historique Lausanne, for the city in one building.
17. Musée Artistes Femmes, for the museum that opened in 2026.

1. Olympic Museum

The Olympic Museum is the official museum of the Olympic movement, at Quai d’Ouchy 1 on the lakefront, and children up to 15 go in free. It holds more than 10,000 objects, across three floors covering the ancient Games, the modern Games and the athletes, with torches from every modern Olympiad, medals, equipment and about 150 screens of archive footage.

The park outside runs down to the lake with sculptures scattered through it and is free to walk, and the terrace restaurant has one of the better views in the city. Allow two hours for the exhibitions and more if you use the park.

Adults aged 16 and over pay CHF 20 (about €21, $25, £18), concessions for seniors, students and visitors with disabilities are CHF 14, groups of 10 or more are CHF 14 per person, and under-16s are free when accompanied by an adult. The price includes the permanent and temporary exhibitions and the audio guide, which runs on your own phone with no app to download. Last admission is 17:00. Take the m2 metro to Ouchy-Olympique. Note that Quai d’Ouchy is closed to traffic at weekends and on public holidays from 16 May to 21 September 2026, so drive to the Avenue de l’Élysée side.

2. Lausanne Cathedral (Cathedral of Notre-Dame)

Lausanne Cathedral is the city’s landmark and one of the most important Gothic buildings in Switzerland, and entry is free. It went up between 1170 and 1235 on the hill above the old town, was consecrated in 1275 and kept its 13th-century rose window, its painted south portal and the high ribbed nave through the Reformation, which stripped most other Swiss churches bare.

The thing that makes it unlike any other cathedral in Europe is still running. Every night between 22:00 and 02:00 the guet, the cathedral watchman, climbs the belfry and calls the hour out over the city in all four directions, a job that has been done here without a break for more than 600 years. You can stand in the square below and hear it for nothing.

The belfry is open to climb for a small charge paid at the door, and the view takes in the roofs of the old town, the lake and the Savoy Alps. Buses stop at Bessières and the m2 at Riponne-Maurice Béjart, and the Escaliers du Marché come up from Place de la Palud.

3. Collection de l’Art Brut

The Collection de l’Art Brut is the reason art historians come to Lausanne, and there is nothing else like it anywhere. Jean Dubuffet coined the term art brut for work made outside the art system by people with no training and often no audience, including psychiatric patients, prisoners, mediums and recluses, and he gave his collection to the city of Lausanne in 1971.

It holds more than 60,000 works and shows a rotating selection of them in the Château de Beaulieu at Avenue des Bergières 11, in low light against dark walls, with Aloïse Corbaz, Augustin Lesage, Marguerite Sirvins and Auguste Walla among the artists always represented. The museum marked 50 years in 2026 with an exhibition on art brut in Switzerland.

It opens every day from 11:00 to 18:00 except Mondays. Buses 2, 3 and 21 stop at Beaulieu-Jomini nearby. It is on the Lausanne Transport Card discount list and free on the first Saturday of the month like most Lausanne museums.

4. Esplanade de Montbenon

The Esplanade de Montbenon is the free terrace above the city, a park on a bluff at Allée Ernest-Ansermet with the lake and the Savoy Alps laid out below it. It is a 10-minute walk west of Place Saint-François and about the same from the station, and most visitors never find it.

The Casino de Montbenon at one end is not a casino but the home of the Cinémathèque suisse, the national film archive, which screens heritage films most days. The Palais de Justice sits at the other end, there are lawns, gravel paths and chess tables in between, and the brasserie terrace looks straight out over the water. Concerts and open-air cinema run here in summer.

Nothing costs anything. Take the m1 to Vigie or walk down from Saint-François. The park is at its best in the hour before sunset, when the light comes up the lake.

5. Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts

The Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts is Vaud’s main art collection and it is now one of the three museums inside Plateforme 10, so the ticket that covers it covers the other two as well. It was founded in 1841, spent 110 years in the Palais de Rumine on Place de la Riponne and moved into its own building beside the station in October 2019.

The collection runs to more than 10,000 works from the 18th century onwards, and the reason to come is the Swiss holding: Félix Vallotton, whose foundation is based here, alongside Charles Gleyre, Louis Soutter and Giovanni Giacometti. Temporary exhibitions take the ground floor and change several times a year.

It opens daily from 10:00 to 18:00, closed Mondays. The three-museum Plateforme 10 ticket costs CHF 25 (about €27, $31, £23) full price and CHF 19 reduced, and it is valid for three months, so the three do not have to be done in one day. Entry is free on the first Saturday of the month.

6. Hermitage Foundation (Fondation de l’Hermitage)

The Fondation de l’Hermitage is the exhibition museum in the hills above Lausanne, in an 1850s country house at Route du Signal 2 with a park of old trees and a view straight down over the cathedral to the lake. It has no permanent display: it runs two or three temporary exhibitions a year, usually 19th and 20th-century painting, and they are the reason to go.

The house itself is worth the walk, with the original rooms and fittings left in place around the hanging, and there is a restaurant in the old stables with a terrace under the trees. The park is free to walk in whether or not you buy a ticket.

Adults pay CHF 22 (about €23, $27, £20). It opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00 and until 21:00 on Thursday, and closes on Mondays except public holidays. Check the exhibition calendar before you go, because the museum closes completely for several weeks between shows. Bus 16 stops at Hermitage; the walk up from the city centre through Sauvabelin takes about 30 minutes.

7. PLATEFORME 10 Art Museums

Plateforme 10 is the arts district built on the old railway land beside Lausanne station, and one ticket gets you into all three of its museums. It covers around 25,000 m² and opened in stages: the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts in 2019, then mudac, the design and applied arts museum, and Photo Elysée, the photography museum, sharing a second building from 2022.

The three are genuinely different from each other, which is what makes the combined ticket work: painting in one, contemporary design and craft in the second, and photography, including the Elysée’s large archive holdings, in the third. The esplanade between them, the bookshop and the café are free to walk into.

The three-museum ticket is CHF 25 (about €27, $31, £23) full price, CHF 19 reduced, CHF 38 for two people and CHF 19 per head for groups of 10 or more, and it is valid for three months for one visit to each museum. Holders of the Lausanne Transport Card pay CHF 20. All three open from 10:00 to 18:00 and close on Mondays, and all three are free on the first Saturday of the month. It is a two-minute walk from the station.

8. Botanical Garden of the University of Lausanne

Lausanne’s botanical garden is free, it is on the slope of Montriond hill at Avenue de Cour, and it is now part of the Naturéum, the cantonal museum of natural sciences, rather than the university. It holds roughly 6,000 plant species across themed outdoor beds and a set of glasshouses.

The layout runs through a systematic garden, an alpine rock garden, a medicinal bed and a carnivorous plant collection, with the glasshouses covering tropical and desert species. It is small enough to do in an hour and quiet enough to be worth an hour, and the lawns look out over the lake.

Entry to the garden and the glasshouses costs nothing, and guided tours and workshops are charged separately. The garden opens seasonally, with reduced winter hours, so check before a December visit. Buses 1, 25 and the m2 to Délices put you a few minutes away.

9. Château d’Ouchy and Promenade

Ouchy is Lausanne’s lakefront, a former fishing village at the bottom of the hill that the city grew down to meet, and the promenade along it is the best free hour in Lausanne. It runs for well over a kilometre from the Vidy parks in the west past the port and the Olympic Museum to the east, with plane trees, benches, lawns, swans and the Savoy mountains across the water.

The Château d’Ouchy at Place du Port is the neo-Gothic building at the centre of it, rebuilt in the 1890s around the surviving 12th-century keep and now a hotel with a lakeside terrace open to anyone. The port next to it is where the CGN Belle Époque paddle steamers tie up, and boats run from here to Evian and Thonon in France, to Vevey and Montreux, and across to Chillon Castle.

The promenade, the parks and the port are free. Pedalos, paddleboards and bikes are rented on the quay in summer. Take the m2 to Ouchy-Olympique, which is a seven-minute ride from the station and saves you a very steep walk back up.

10. Ouchy Waterfront & Port

Ouchy port is where Lausanne gets on the water, and the CGN scheduled boats are public transport rather than cruises, which makes them the cheap way to use the lake. Crossings to Evian-les-Bains and Thonon-les-Bains land in France, so carry a passport or national ID card; services east along the shore reach Vevey, Montreux and Chillon Castle.

The Vidy end of the waterfront, 20 minutes west on foot, is where the city actually goes: public beaches, a bathing area, barbecue spots, a skate park and the Roman site and museum at Lausanne-Vidy, all free. The Bourg-en-Lavaux vineyards start a few kilometres east and the lake path continues towards them.

Everything on the shore is free to use; the boats, the rentals and the beach kiosks are not. A Swiss Travel Pass covers CGN scheduled services, and the Lausanne Transport Card, which every hotel guest gets, covers the m2 down here and back.

11. Place de la Palud

Place de la Palud is the old market square of Lausanne, in the pedestrian heart of the old town, with the Hôtel de Ville on one side and the Fontaine de la Justice, the oldest fountain in the city, in the middle. The town hall front dates from the 1670s, and the fountain’s painted figure of Justice has stood there, in one version or another, since 1557.

The market fills the square on Wednesday and Saturday mornings with produce, cheese, bread and flowers from the Vaud countryside, and the cafés put tables out around it. On the wall above the square there is a mechanical clock with a moving tableau that plays on the hour between 09:00 and 19:00.

The square is free and pedestrianised. The m2 stops at Riponne-Maurice Béjart, three minutes away, and the Escaliers du Marché climb from the corner of the square up to the cathedral.

12. Parc de Mon Repos

Parc de Mon Repos is the neoclassical park east of the old town, laid out in the late 18th century around a villa and opened to the public in the 1900s. It has lawns, mature trees, a pond with ducks, an artificial grotto, an aviary and a small neo-Gothic folly, all free and all open daily.

Its footnote in history is the villa at the centre, which housed the International Olympic Committee from 1922 to 1967, between Pierre de Coubertin’s first Lausanne offices and the IOC’s move to Vidy. Voltaire also put on plays in a theatre that once stood here.

Entry is free. Buses 7, 8 and 16 stop at Mon-Repos on Avenue de Mon-Repos, and it is 10 to 15 minutes on foot from the cathedral, downhill on the way there.

13. Sauvabelin Tower

The Sauvabelin Tower is 35 m of spiral wooden staircase in the forest above Lausanne, it has 302 steps, and it is free. Julius Natterer designed it and it was built in 2003 entirely from Swiss timber, as a demonstration of what modern engineered wood can do; there is no lift and no ticket office.

From the platform you get the whole of Lausanne, Lake Geneva and the Alps on the French shore. The forest around it has marked trails and a small lake with a farm and a restaurant, and the walk up through Sauvabelin from the city takes about 40 minutes.

Access is through an automatic gate, entry is limited to 50 people at a time and the tower closes in bad weather, which catches people out on a wet day. Bus 16 from the city centre stops at Sauvabelin, five minutes’ walk away.

14. St. François Church

St. François is the church on Lausanne’s main square and it survived the fire that destroyed most of the city in 1368, which makes it one of the oldest buildings in the lower town. It began as the church of a Franciscan friary founded in the 13th century, became a Protestant parish church at the Reformation, and lost its monastic buildings afterwards.

Inside there is Gothic vaulting, stained glass in the chancel and an organ used for regular recitals; the tower is a later addition. The square around it, Place Saint-François, is the commercial centre of Lausanne, so the church sits in the middle of the banks, the department stores and the bus interchange rather than in a quiet corner.

Entry is free. The square is served by most city bus lines and is a five-minute walk from the m2 at Lausanne-Flon. Concerts, including some during the Festival de la Cité in July, are ticketed separately.

15. Escaliers du Marché

The Escaliers du Marché are the covered wooden stairs that climb from Place de la Palud to the cathedral, and they are the single most photographed thing in Lausanne’s old town. A staircase has run on this line since the 13th century; the present structure, with its shingled roof carried on wooden posts, dates from the early 18th.

Walking up takes a few minutes and passes small shops, galleries and cafés on the Rue Pierre-Viret side. It is the natural route between the two halves of the old town and it is how the market traders once got their goods up the hill, which is where the name comes from.

The stairs are free and open at all hours. They start at the north-east corner of Place de la Palud and come out beside the Musée Historique Lausanne, opposite the cathedral.

16. Musée Historique Lausanne

The Musée Historique Lausanne tells the story of the city in the former residence of its prince-bishops, directly opposite the cathedral at Place de la Cathédrale 4. The building goes back to the 12th century and has been a court, a hospital and a prison before becoming a museum in 1918; the display was rebuilt in 2018.

The permanent exhibition runs chronologically from Roman Lousonna to the present, and its centrepiece is the large scale model of Lausanne as it stood in the 17th century, before the fires, the demolitions and the viaducts. Paintings, photographs, trade objects and everyday things fill in the rest.

Admission is charged, and entry is free on the first Saturday of the month, as it is at most Lausanne museums, and on International Museum Day, 18 May. It is closed on Mondays and on 25 December and 1 January. The Escaliers du Marché bring you out beside it.

17. Musée Artistes Femmes

The Musée Artistes Femmes opened in March 2026 at Rue de la Louve 3 in the lower old town, and it is the first independent museum in Switzerland devoted entirely to emerging women artists. It is small, it is in a shopfront rather than a palace, and it is the newest thing on any Lausanne list.

The programme is temporary exhibitions of contemporary work by living artists, changing several times a year, with talks, art-history courses and a mentoring programme called the MAF Academy running alongside. Twelve established artists act as the museum’s public faces and mentors. Access to the exhibitions is free.

It opens Tuesday to Friday from 10:00 to 18:00, Saturday from 12:00 to 18:00 and Sunday from 11:00 to 18:00, and closes on Mondays. It shuts for about two weeks between exhibitions, so check before you walk over. It is five minutes from Place de la Palud and three from the m2 at Riponne-Maurice Béjart.

Where is Lausanne?

Lausanne is on the north shore of Lake Geneva in the canton of Vaud, in French-speaking Switzerland, built on three hills above the water. The centre runs from the cathedral at about 500 m down to the lake at 372 m, which is why the m2 metro exists.

Geneva is 62 km (38.5 mi) west and about 40 minutes by train, Montreux 25 minutes east, Bern about 70 minutes and Zurich about 2 hours 10 minutes. Geneva Airport has a station under the terminal with direct trains to Lausanne.

What is the history of Lausanne?

Lausanne began as the Roman port of Lousonna at Vidy, on the lake, and moved uphill to the defensible cathedral hill in the 6th century after the Roman settlement declined. It became a bishopric, and the cathedral consecrated in 1275 made it a pilgrimage stop on the route to Rome.

Bern took Vaud in 1536 and imposed the Reformation; the bishop left and the cathedral became a Protestant church. Vaud broke away in 1803 and Lausanne became its capital. The 19th century brought the railway, the hotels of Ouchy and a large foreign community, among them Byron, Dickens and later Coco Chanel and David Bowie, and in 1915 Pierre de Coubertin moved the International Olympic Committee here from Paris, which is the decision the modern city is built on.

Lausanne basics: language, money, plugs and time

Lausanne runs on French, Swiss francs, Type J plugs and Central European Time. Switzerland is not in the EU and does not use the euro, which catches out visitors arriving by boat from France. The practical facts about Switzerland are set out below.

How many days do you need in Lausanne?

Two days covers Lausanne and three is comfortable. Day one is the lake: the Olympic Museum, the Ouchy promenade, the port and a boat if the weather holds. Day two is the hill: the cathedral, Place de la Palud, the Escaliers du Marché, the history museum and Plateforme 10 on the way back to the station.

A third day buys the Collection de l’Art Brut and the Hermitage, or a trip out. Lavaux, the terraced vineyards on the lake between here and Montreux, starts 10 minutes east by train and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Montreux and Chillon Castle are 25 minutes, Vevey and Chaplin’s World 15, and Geneva about 40 minutes.

Is Lausanne expensive to visit?

Yes, Lausanne is expensive, though slightly less so than Geneva, and the hotel rates are the sharpest part of it. The city fills for conferences and sporting congresses rather than for a tourist high season, so a week in June can cost double a week in March. The wider picture on prices in Switzerland applies.

Four things bring the total down. The Lausanne Transport Card is handed to every hotel guest and covers buses, trains and the metro across Mobilis zones 11, 12 and 15 to 19 for the whole stay, up to 15 days. Most Lausanne museums are free on the first Saturday of the month and on 18 May. The Plateforme 10 ticket covers three museums for three months, so it does not have to be spent in one visit, and it drops to CHF 20 with the transport card. And a long list of the city’s best hours costs nothing at all: the cathedral, the night watchman, Montbenon, Sauvabelin Tower, the botanical garden, the Ouchy promenade and the Vidy beaches.

What to eat in Lausanne

Lausanne eats Vaud food, built on lake fish, cheese and the Chasselas grown on the terraces just east of the city. The dishes to look for are below, and the list of local food to try in Switzerland covers the rest of the country.

1. Filets de perche. Perch fillets from the lake, floured, fried in butter and served with lemon and chips. Ask whether they are local, because much restaurant perch is imported.
2. Papet vaudois. Leeks and potatoes stewed together under a saucisse aux choux, the cabbage sausage that belongs to this canton. Winter food and heavy.
3. Malakoffs. Deep-fried cheese fritters from the Vaud wine villages, eaten as a starter with mustard and pickles.
4. Fondue moitié-moitié. Half Gruyère, half Vacherin Fribourgeois, ordered by the pot. Restaurants serve it all year for visitors; locals eat it between October and March.
5. Taillé aux greubons. A savoury pastry made with pork crackling, sold in Vaud bakeries in the morning and gone by lunchtime.
6. Chasselas from Lavaux. The white wine from the terraces 10 minutes up the lake, dry and soft, best drunk in the caveaux where it is made.
7. Saucisson vaudois. A cured smoked pork sausage with a protected designation, boiled and served with papet or sliced cold.

Where are the best places to eat in Lausanne?

Start in the old town around Place de la Palud and Rue Pépinet, where the brasseries and caves do Vaud food at ordinary prices, and on the Rue de l’Ale and Rue Centrale side for the cheaper student places.

For a meal with the lake in front of you, the Ouchy quay and the Beau-Rivage Palace restaurants are the classic choice, and the Lausanne Palace kitchens are the other end of the scale in the upper town. The Flon district, the converted warehouse quarter between the station and the old town, is where the newer restaurants and the bars are.

Cheaper: the Wednesday and Saturday markets on Place de la Palud and Place de la Riponne, the Migros and Coop counters at the station, and the Vidy lakefront kiosks in summer.

Where to stay in Lausanne

Stay in Ouchy, the city centre or around the station, because the m2 links all three in minutes and each solves a different problem. Ouchy is on the water, quiet and 10 minutes below the centre by metro. The centre, around Saint-François and the old town, puts you in walking distance of everything on the hill. The station area is the practical choice for day trips along the lake. Every one of them comes with a free transport card.

On the lake: Beau-Rivage Palace. The Belle Époque palace hotel in four acres of park on the Ouchy shoreline, with a Guerlain spa, several restaurants and gardens running down to the water. It is a short walk from the Olympic Museum and the port. Check dates for the Beau-Rivage Palace.

In the upper town: Lausanne Palace. A five-star hotel above Place Saint-François with four restaurants and a large spa, looking out over the lake from the top of the hill and three minutes from the old town. Check dates for the Lausanne Palace.

Mid-range, near the station: Palmiers by Fassbind. A four-star in a quiet street a short walk from Lausanne station and Plateforme 10, with two restaurants, a sauna, a steam room and a fitness room. It traded for years as the Alpha-Palmiers and the booking listing still uses that name. Check dates for Palmiers by Fassbind.

Getting to Lausanne and getting around

Arrive by train, because Lausanne is on the main line along the lake and the station sits two minutes from Plateforme 10 and one m2 stop from either the old town or Ouchy. Geneva Airport is about 40 minutes away with trains every few minutes from a station under the terminal, Bern is about 70 minutes and Zurich about 2 hours 10.

In the city, the m2 does the work. It climbs from Ouchy on the lake to Croisettes at the top of town, through Lausanne-Flon and the station, and it is the only underground metro line in Switzerland. The m1 runs west to the university and the EPFL campus, and buses and trolleybuses cover the rest. The free Lausanne Transport Card covers all of it in second class.

Compare train fares on Omio before buying at the counter, since advance Swiss fares beat walk-up prices. A car is a liability here: the old town is pedestrianised, the hill is steep and one-way, and parking is expensive.

Tours and day trips from Lausanne

Book a guided tour in Lausanne for the cathedral, the old town and the Lavaux vineyards, which are the three things where a guide adds what a map cannot. Lake cruises, wine tastings in the terraces and half-day runs to Gruyères and Chaplin’s World are the other regular options.

The lake does the rest. CGN boats run east to Vevey, Montreux and Chillon and across to Evian and Thonon in France. By train, Lavaux is 10 minutes, Montreux 25, Gruyères about 90 minutes and Thun about two hours. The full set of places to visit and live in Switzerland is on the Switzerland hub.

Lausanne FAQ

Is Lausanne worth visiting? Yes, for the Olympic Museum, the cathedral, the Art Brut collection and the lakefront, and as a base for Lavaux. Two days is enough for the city itself, and it is a better base than Geneva if the lake and the vineyards are the point.

Is Lausanne safe to visit? Yes. Violent crime is rare and the old town and Ouchy are comfortable at night. The usual care with bags applies around the station and the Flon nightlife district at weekends.

Is Lausanne easy to visit with kids? Yes, and cheaper than most Swiss cities for families: under-16s are free at the Olympic Museum, the Sauvabelin Tower and the botanical garden cost nothing, and the Vidy beaches and the Ouchy pedalos fill a hot afternoon. The hill is the only real obstacle, and the m2 solves it.

What is Lausanne famous for? The International Olympic Committee, which has been based here since 1915, the cathedral and its night watchman, and the Collection de l’Art Brut. It is also a university city, with the University of Lausanne and the EPFL both on the western edge, which is why the place feels younger than its architecture.

Do I need to pay for transport in Lausanne? Not if you are staying overnight. Hotels, hostels and campsites issue a free Lausanne Transport Card covering buses, trains and both metro lines for the length of the stay.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from reading Lausanne’s museums, cards and timetables off their own sites in September 2026, and each one changes what a day in the city costs or contains.

1. Plan a first Saturday if you can, because most Lausanne museums are free that day. Lausanne’s municipal and cantonal museums, including the Collection de l’Art Brut, the history museum and the three Plateforme 10 museums, give free entry on the first Saturday of the month and on International Museum Day, 18 May.
2. Take children to the Olympic Museum, not around it. Under-16s go free when accompanied by an adult, which makes it one of the cheapest family museums in Switzerland: two adults and three children costs CHF 40 (about €43, $49, £37) in total. The audio guide is free too and runs on your own phone without an app.
3. Buy the Plateforme 10 ticket even for one museum, and use the transport card. CHF 25 (about €27, $31, £23) covers the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, mudac and Photo Elysée and stays valid for three months for one visit to each, so you can spread it across a trip. With the Lausanne Transport Card your hotel gives you, it drops to CHF 20.
4. Check the Hermitage is actually open before you climb the hill. The Fondation de l’Hermitage has no permanent collection and shuts completely for several weeks between exhibitions, which is not obvious from a listing page. Adults pay CHF 22 (about €23, $27, £20) when it is open, and the park around the house is free either way.
5. Go to the cathedral square at 22:00 and listen. The guet climbs the belfry and calls the hour out over the city in all four directions every night between 22:00 and 02:00, an unbroken tradition of more than 600 years, and it costs nothing to stand below and hear it. The Sauvabelin Tower, the other free view, closes in bad weather and admits only 50 people at a time, so it is the one to skip on a wet day.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the team covers Lausanne and the rest of Switzerland for independent travellers, including the Olympic Museum, the Plateforme 10 galleries, the Lavaux wine tours and the lakefront and old-town hotels worth booking. We update this page when prices, opening hours and closures change.