Joanne's long walks: Road to Home 2023 Day 53: Lausanne

Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Road to Home 2023 Day 53: Lausanne - Rivaz

There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way

- Buddha (according to a poster at our airbnb!)

Today's stage has been one of spectacular landscapes, like walking through a picture postcard all day long!

We checked out of the miniature cabin at Vidy campground that had been our home for two nights, and said goodbye to Elaine: she decided to take the steam paddleboat up the lake to Villeneuve, in order to gain a couple of days, as she was beginning to worry about making it to Rome within the allotted time of her 90-day Schengen visa. We have been walking together for 22 days, so I was sorry to see her go!

Elaine and her boat

After seeing Elaine off, Audrey and I walked past the Château and carried on along the waterfront of Lausanne's swish Ouchy district. I believe it's called Ouchy because if you stop at any of the fancy cafés and restaurants, that's what you say when you get the bill! 😄

The Swiss seem to be particularly prolific, at least in Lausanne, and childcare appears to be very well-organised. We kept running into small bands of young children out exploring the seashore, and even younger infants being wheeled about in nifty four-seater pushchairs with colour-coded seats and matching pockets containing their baby bottles, soothers and suchlike. Along the waterfront we talked to a number of English-speaking expat women of various ages, including two pregnant women out walking practically identical dogs. One of the women was due the very next day! Then we spoke to an older Englishwoman who pointed out a family of swans with cygnets; she told us they come back to nest in the same spot every year!

The lakeside path alternated between sidewalks, little parks, beaches, and narrow pathways right by the water's edge. By the time we reached Lutry we could clearly see the vineyards of Chasselas grapes on the hillsides above the lake, and eventually our path left the lakeshore to climb up among the vines.

The Via Francigena is never marked as such in Switzerland, but identified with painted yellow lozenges and yellow arrows, with yellow "Tourisme Pédestre" signs, or with the outline of a man with a backpack in black against a yellow background. We called him Yellowman and followed him all day! 😄

Yellowman led us down from the hillside vineyards into the town of Cully, and right past the Co-op grocery store, where we bought sandwiches, crisps and fruit to eat on the benches by the lake. While we were there the steamboat came into the dock to pick up passengers.

It was hard to get moving again after this lakeside lunch break, and especially hard to climb high above the lake among the vineyards under the hot sun. Grapevines are of course planted on south-facing slopes which are entirely exposed to the sun, and so were we as we walked the final kilometres of the day.

Hot and tired despite the absolutely stunning scenery, we finally reached Rivaz, our destination for the day. We stopped to pick up some wine in the village from a self-service wine cooler with payment by cash or card on an honour system before proceeding to our airbnb. Our room is in a house where the owner rents out several rooms, and the other guests are tourists rather than walkers. We dined early, on groceries carried from the supermarket in Cully, and drank our wine on a terrace with a view of the vineyards, the lake and the Alps, which are beginning to look ominously close!!