Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Lausanne

Lausanne

When Sigeric slept there in 990 — his notebook writes Losanna — Lausanne was a bishop's town above the lake, on the road leading from Orbe to the Valais. Two centuries later the town had one of the finest Gothic cathedrals outside France: the works opened about 1170 and were essentially finished about 1235, with a rose window set about 1205, earlier than those of Chartres, and a painted doorway on the south flank, carved about 1220-1230 around the Coronation of the Virgin, whose original colours have been recovered. The consecration took place on 28 October 1275, in the presence of Pope Gregory X, who was returning from the Council of Lyon, of Bishop Guillaume de Champvent and of the Emperor Rudolf of Habsburg. It is no accident that the road to Rome stopped there: the cathedral held a statue of the Virgin reputed to be miraculous, and the figure of seventy thousand pilgrims a year has been advanced for a town of about seven thousand inhabitants — a chronicler's order of magnitude, not a count. All that ended in 1536, when the Pays de Vaud went over to the Reformation: the statue disappeared, the pilgrimages died out, the church became a temple. There remained the stone, the light and the watchman, who since 1405 has called the hours from the top of the belfry.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale de Lausanne ↗

Getting there : On foot from the place de la Palud by the escaliers du Marché, or by the m2 metro, Bessières station, then five minutes' climb. Admission free every day; the belfry tower is climbed for a charge. The watchman still calls the hours from the top of the belfry, from ten at night to two in the morning, every night of the year.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound