Dennis & Aimee's Big Gay Paris Adventure

Lausanne, Switzerland!

Our friend Peter and his fiancée Jung are off to Venice in late August, and we'll be heading down to meet them there. I was looking for a destination that was "on the way" or convenient to visit along with Venice (since we've spent some time in Venice already). I decided that one good way to do this was to check to see where the trains stopped in between Paris and Venice, and the first city that popped up was Lausanne. I looked on my handy map of Europe that's thumbtacked to my office wall, and discovered that Lausanne is on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. This satisfies a few very important criteria:

1. New country we've never been to.
   
2. In the mountains, so it won't be stinking hot.
   
3. They speak French (in this part of Switzerland) and our French teacher mocks them for their slow speech patterns, which should be perfect for us.
   
4. They eat Fondue there.
   
5. It is heartbreakingly beautiful. Really, astoundingly so from the pictures. It's terraced up a hillside, has an old gothic cathedral, and the icy blue water of the lake.
   

Don't believe me? Take a look:


Not too shabby, huh? How about this one:


Here's a compelling quote from switzerland.isyours.com:

LAUSANNE tends to inspire hyperbole. In a country of spectacular natural beauty it is the most beautiful of cities, Switzerland’s San Francisco, a city of incredibly steep hills that has developed tiered above the lake on a succession of compact, south-facing terraces. Vistas of blue water, glittering sunlight and the purple and grey of the looming, whitecapped Savoy Alps peep through between gaps in buildings or at the ends of steeply dropping alleys. Much of the city is still wooded, there are plenty of parks, and the tree-lined lakefront promenades spill over with lush, beds of vibrantly colourful flowers. Attractive, interesting, worldly, and well aware of how to have a good time, it’s simply Switzerland’s sexiest city.

So, Saturday August 20 we'll take the 3.5hr train ride to Lausanne, then on the 25th we'll take the train to Venice and hang out with Peter and Jung, and on the 30th of August we'll fly home, returning to work on September 1.

Maybe we'll hit Nice in September for a beach weekend. Dennis' mother is coming to visit in mid-Sept. We'll probably head back to Chicago in October. I like having a trip "on deck" if you hadn't noticed. Using up all of this vacation requires diligence!

I better double-up on my jogging in preparation for all of the food food food.

--Aimee