Advertisement
Published: September 24th 2018
Edit Blog Post
A note:
"Higher, stronger, faster" is the Olympic Motto. And seen on a poster:
"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not the winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well" (Pierre de Coubertin) "And shopping is not an Olympic Event" The weather has changed and it has been a cold, blustery day. After all the hiking in the mountains over the past few days it was time for a break and to go somewhere less elevated and warmer. We figured to go to the other side of the Alps where the weather was fine but cold. Our Swiss Travel Pass allows us to go anywhere in Switzerland so we set off to visit the Olympic Museum in Lausanne which we'd visited many years ago but was no doubt different today, and it was.
The trip was two and a half hours (on a standing room only train for half the journey), via Bern then down to Lake Geneva. The scenery in this area is lovely rolling countryside but with many towns and industry along the way. I guess this is because good land is limited in this mountainous country
The world record high jump
It's astounding to see in reality just how high the world record high jump is. This jump is outside the main entrance to the Museum so they pack in the industry and towns to cater for 8 million people. Certainly industry is not limited and you get the idea that the reason they are prosperous is because of industrial production. Also on this route are several historical towns with protective old walls, towers and castles, such as Bern, Freiburg and Romont. Perhaps this is tied up with it being a French speaking area and being part of France in the past.
As we arrived at Lake Geneva the land use changed vineyards on the south facing warm slopes. In Lausanne we got the Metro downhill from the City Centre to the lake front where we found a sheltered spot out of the wind on the lake front for our lunch. Further along the lakefront is the Olympic Park set in a large area of parkland with many sculptures of past Olympic stars. The whole facility has been upgraded since we last visited as is a modern building of 3 floors. The displays covered the history of the Olympics, selected stars of past Games, the Stadiums and Villages, sports gear over the years, new fabrics and sport technology, training, diets, doping, medals, and Olympic philosophy.
One of the interactive displays
This one shows the athletes clothes and shoes from the last few Games. On the display you can choose photos or videos to view on the screen. I ran the video on the screen showing Mo Farah's winning 5000m
As well there were many interactive themes to get involved in with excellent photography and videos. The one disappointment we had was that there was very little indeed that showed NZ participation - just the odd photo but nothing about any huge successes that we've had. These were included at our last visit. Despite this, anyone interested in sport would love visiting this place. You could spend all day there but we had another two and a half hours to go back to Interlaken again so our time was a bit limited.
This was a true TTATs day. With our Swiss Travel Pass we paid nothing all day. The train, the metro and the museum were all included in the Pass. And we took our own lunch!
If we should return to Switzerland again, a few days in this area would be worthwhile as there was so much more to see and do.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0336s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb