Recreation areas

If you were to take a helicopter flight over these nine hectares of green space, located to the south of Lausanne railway station, you might summarily describe it as a vast grassy square (Place de Milan) with a steep mound (Montriond Hill).

360° views open up multiple vistas from the top of this 35-metre-high tower, which was built in 2003: you can view the Lausanne conurbation, Lake Geneva and the three geographic regions of Switzerland - the Alps, the Jura and the Plateau.

It features three sumptuous Lausanne gardens, situated one after the other along the quays: the Denantou, the Elysée, a little further back, and the Olympic Park, but also the rose garden of Place du Général Guisan, which boasts more than 130 different species of rose. Finally, from the CGN landing stages located at the bottom of the Dapples gardens you can embark for a unique cruise over Lake Geneva.

Sauvabelin and its lake have been a gathering place for Sunday family outings, school trips and visitors since the 19th century. It is one of Lausanne's symbols of nature in the city, as it takes no more than 10 minutes to reach this lush green setting from the city centre.

Here, each can truly do their own thing, because it has everything: history with a capital H, sport, boats and picnics, theatre and camping, strolls and competitions, delicacies and silence. To visitors of the Vaud capital, Expo 64, the national exhibition, is still regarded as boasting an exceptional leisure area by the lake which has nothing like the appearance it had before.

Rollerskaters can weave and speed for hundreds of yards without crossing a road, and strollers admire masses of roses set amid sloping lawns. With its gently sloping paths, thousands of rose bushes and extraordinary architecture, the Vallée de la Jeunesse seems almost surreal, as if frozen in time.