Walks around Lausanne

This weekend I found two lovely walks to do in and around Lausanne.

The first was through the vineyards that surround Lausanne. Andrea came down from Zurich

We started the walk in Lutry and wound our way through the vineyards. There were roses everywhere and the scent was amazing. We passed through endless vineyards and past many fancy villas.

The weather was gorgeous and it was often quite hot on the roads winding through the vineyards. Then we would come to a small town and walk through the narrow streets.

Throughout the vineyards were small villages of 20 homes and the path that we took wound through the villages as well. It was a good thing because we could fill up our water at the various village fountains. The fountains had old stone basins and Andrea told me that was where the village women would do their laundry.

Andrea and the lake.

Carly sans glasses!

 Another view of one of the villages sitting up on the hill.

After walking for several hours we headed down to the water and caught a boat back to Lausanne. Talk about the perfect ending to a day, the breeze on the boat was nice and cool and it was full of people, unlike the vineyard trail.

Andrea and I on the boat.

Then the next day was another urban hike with my friend Pam. We took a bus to the outskirts of Lausanne and followed the 'fox' trail following a river through town down to the lake. There were interpretive signs the entire length of the trail and Pam helped me with my French. They had information about the neighbourhoods, the plants, animals and geology and always talking about the role of foxes and their integration into the town. Foxes in Europe take the role of North American coyotes because there are no coyotes here. I've seen the occasional fox here in town but always assumed they were coyotes.

The walk was really nice, sometimes it was through the quiet streets, other times it was through the woods around the small river and it would wander through parks and by locals having picnics. At one park, a cherry tree was producing cherries and I ate my first cherries right off the tree. We had our lunch sitting at a bus stop and the weather the entire day was gorgeous.

We finished the day having crepes on the shore down at Ouchy watching the bad weather roll in across the lake, the wind had picked up and it started to get a bit chilly.