We’re taking you on a scenic Swiss rail journey, from Bern to Lausanne.
You'll find the Bern train station is quite large and modern and easy to navigate, so
you will quickly find your platform.
And once you're on the train, you'll be zipping through some more beautiful Swiss countryside
in the western part of Switzerland.
We’re entering the French-speaking part of the nation, and you'll notice even the
architecture of the homes bears a certain resemblance to France as well as Switzerland.
I'd like to also tell you just a little bit about Switzerland.
It is such a wonderful place, and such a culturally rich place, you know, there's the German side
that we've been in.
We're heading now to the French side in the west part of the country.
And then of course in the south they speak the Italian as we saw coming through from
Ticino.
And a little bit of the original Romansch language, maybe 3% of the population, similar
to a Latin language.
And that linguistic divide has been there for thousands of years, even archaeologically,
when they look at the artifacts of the early prehistoric days.
There's a difference in cultures between East and West in Switzerland.
We've left that steep alpine terrain for the rolling hills and pasture lands.
The journey can be done in as little as one hour and six minutes.
No connections necessary, it's a direct shot.
Well, the scenery is quite lovely especially on a sunny day like this, but it is kind of
standard, it's the usual nice view you'll get out the window, until you reach the shores
of Lake Geneva, and then something very special happens.
You’re entering a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Lavaux Vineyard Terraces, which
is the largest vineyard region in all of Switzerland.
It stretches for about 30 km along the northern shores of Lake Geneva, from the Castle of
Chillon to the eastern outskirts of Lausanne.
It's a beautiful sight to see, and it's also a very productive land, growing the Chasselas
grape which is used in the production of white wine, a dry and fruity popular wine here in
Switzerland.
And these vineyards are an outstanding ecological example of a thousand-year interaction between
people and their environment in which the local resources were optimized to produce
this highly-valued wine.
These wine terraces have been in continuous use and cultivation ever since the eleventh
century when Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries controlled the area and began the farming.
It's believed the wine cultivation here actually goes further back to the Roman days.
It demonstrates how with proper control and protection a sensitive environmental area
can continue to be productive for thousands of years.
However, in recent times, there has been some threat in the face of fast-growing urban settlements
of Lausanne and this vulnerability has prompted protection measures strongly supported by
local communities and reinforced by the UNESCO World Heritage designation.
It truly is one of the most beautiful stretches of vineyards that you'll ever see from a train,
especially when you get to look at it for about 5 to 10 minutes as you’re rolling
along.
So this is not a place to be taking a nap on the train.
You want to be glued to the window, taking your pictures and soaking up the vista.
Soon enough you’ll be arriving at the main train station of Lausanne, and here you generally
get off and connect with the TGV that will take you on directly north into France.
But if you have enough time between your train connections, it's worth having a quick look
at Lausanne.
You can hop on the Metro in the train station and it quickly brings you down to the lakeshore,
a delightful spot for a brief walk.
“Seven minutes from Lausanne train station down to Ouchy, we cross over.”
On such a warm sunny day with lush flowers and foliage in the park it almost seems like
you're on the shores of the Mediterranean.
But we’re on the Swiss shores of Lake Geneva, also called Lac Leman by the French, who own
the southern shore.
In the nineteenth century Ouchy was a separate fishing village and then became incorporated
as the harbor of Lausanne, and now it's purely a pleasure center.
If you had time for a few days, there are some deluxe hotels here: the Beau Rivage Palace
and the Angleterre, and the deluxe four-star Chateau d’Ouchy, along with some impressive
gourmet restaurants.
The Tourist Information Office by the waterfront can fix you up with a place to stay or give
you some free brochures and maps with information about the area.
Or just walk around on your own and soak up the sights.
“Now I’m going back, thirty minutes later.
The trains going to leave about 12:30, get us back up there at 12:35.”
Yeah, that was a quick look, just half an hour to browse around quickly in the waterfront
and skipping the entire Old Town of Lausanne.
So this really was a little bit painful to be here for such a short while, but instead
of just waiting around in the train station for the next train, why not do what you can,
have a look around and prepare maybe for a future visit to this very attractive region.
After all, our main purpose in traveling through Lausanne was to connect with the TGV that's
going to take us up into France.
While the Swiss rail system is certainly one of the world's best, there are no high-speed
Swiss trains.
They are planning some, but they don't really need him because the distances are so short,
and they compensate with outstanding scenery and great service.
We have a big series of movies about Switzerland taking you to most of the great places.
We will bring you to Lucerne and up to Mount Titlis, Mount Rigi, over to Interlaken, up
to the Jungfrau.
We will see the Shilthorn, Lauterbrunnen Valley, Trummelbach Falls, Grindelwald, Bern, then
on to Zermatt, the Matterhorn, yes we will have a look at the Gornergrat, up the Sunnegga,
do some hiking, show you the village then on down to Lugano and Locarno in the southern
part of Switzerland, the Ticino we also take you to the great city of Zürich.
Look for them in our Swiss collection.