I moved to Zuerich at the end of April 2006 for a few months, with my work. Having been in country just a few weeks, I decided to take a weekend away in the city of Lausanne, located in the western canton of Vaud; one of the 26 that make up confederation helvetica, or Switzerland. My main motivation for going was that I'd heard, that the city was the home of the Olympic games, where the museum and headquarters are. I'm a great fan of the olympics, and really believe in it's value, and wish I could go back 15 years, and have the youth, talent and greatness to be like any of those athletes (except in the football, or curling they shouldn't be olympic sports).

Sadly the closest I'm ever going to get to being an Olympic athlete or a medal, is by a visit to the museum, but I had an excellent weekend there. It took about 2 and a half hours by train to reach Lausanne from Zurich HB train station. The ride was excellent and I sat on the upper deck of the two tier train and had a great view of the country.

Lake Geneva, divides France and Switzerland, and there a few boats which sail across the lake to France. I stayed just a few hundred metre's away from the headquarters's building, at an excellent youth hostel, and not far from the lake. I managed to use my basic French language skills to ask the way to the museum and to check into a private room for a very reasonable 50Chf. I then walked about 3-4km along the lake taking photo's trying to avoid getting rain on my lens. At one point I walked through a very dodgy looking gypo caravan park, that was setup just behind a temporary fair ground (I hate pikies), and had to conceal my giant camera as best I could.

I had lunch at the museum, which was excellent, the lunch and the exhibits, it bought tears to my eyes watching the culmination of up to a decade of effort in some of the video presentations, like the sign, I really think that the olympic fire does brighten the world. Thankfully the rain cleared, and I was able to get some more nice pictures before heading into town for a night out at a bavarian meat only restaurant, brasserie Bavaria on Rue du Petit Chene (with a great bottle of my favorite white, gewurtzraminer), followed by a trip to this crazy 5 floor (MAD) nightclub; that I had to blag my way into, pretending to be associated to a group of girls; my lonely planet book said was a must visit. Wasn't a bad night, but house and R&B music just isn't rock.

After jogging back to the hostel arriving back at around 4am, following a crawl under a chainlink fence and through some dodgy unlit woodland, I got my head down for the short night, I had to check out by 10am. I got up early and partook in the free breakfast, and made my way back to the olympic museum having read about a photography museum adjacent to it. I had to wait until it opened and took some photo's in the better light. The museum was a total waste of time after my 15 min walk around, and a waste of my 7Chf, bizarre art scene photo's, I think mine are better.

I then walked up to the centre of town and St Francois church, where I trekked up the hill to the ancient Cathedrale de Notre Dame. Still hung over, I tried to take some good photo's and wandered around the town for a couple of hours, before jumping on a train back to Zurich in the early afternoon. I had a great weekend visit, and thoroughly enjoyed myself, even if I did get into a heated argument / fight with a french speaking lavatory attendant about 3 minutes after arriving in the town.