Being a chess fan, I had heard about Lausanne before visiting Switzerland. Lausanne is famous in chess world for hosting tournaments.

Lausanne is in the city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. It is situated in the shores of beautiful Lake Geneva (Lac Léman in French). Lakeside is the most vibrant of places in Lausanne to see. You can relax and wind down, play chess with huge chessboard and huge pieces. There are plenty of colourful boats parked and waiting to go. I visited the lakeside once in April and once in September and the whether was gorgeous.

The headquarters of the International Olympic Committee are located in Lausanne.

Cathedral Notre-Dame of Lausanne is located very near to the Lake Geneva and you may combine the visit to both places. We walked down from the Lausanne rail station to the lakeside. We in fact walked with a pushchair and it was not a long walk. May be 10 to 15 minutes.

Lausanne City Map: http://www.lausanne-tourisme.ch/DataDir/LinkedDocsObjDir/6286.pdf

Lausanne Tourism office
Place de la Gare 9 et Place de la Navigation 4
1000 Lausanne
Phone +41 21 613 73 73
Fax +41 21 616 86 47
Ouchy, ligne 2 et Metrobus

Nearest airport will be Geneva.

Lausanne is about 30 to 50 minutes by swiss rail from Geneva. Faster Intercity trains will take you in 30 minutes whereas slower ones (regional) will take about 50 minutes.

Use this Timetable to query your journey between various Swiss Destinations. It is in collaboration with swiss rail site sbb.ch.

Swiss rail is one of the most efficient in the world. Swiss travel system is arguably world's best integrates travel systm with rail / train, bus and ferry / boat timings well coordinated to give a great experience to travellers.

You will also be able to buy online tickets, rail passes, rail cards, see destination information etc.