16 September 2021

Lousanne Switzerland

Woke up this morning in Lousanne, Switzerland. And yes, we are staying in the same place for a couple of days without any side excursions planned. This is definitely different from everywhere else we have been. It is one of the larger cities in Switzerland, is built on a hillside about to slide into Lake Geneva, and the dominate language is French. Probably to compensate for the terrain, they give all visitors a free pass for the transit system in town. They pay for it with the tourist tax on your hotel room. (Is something really free if you get something for free after you have paid for it.?). We will make that another discussion.

Main attraction for today was hoopla about Covid stuff, as in more hoops to jump through. Just a couple of days ago the ground rules changed again-you need to have a vaccination and a recent Covid test, as verified on a government issued form with a QR code -to go into a restaurant or any other large indoor place. We meet all of the requirements, but are at the mercy of the government to supply us with the proper form.

Basically, the government is swamped taking care of the locals and tourists be damned. Everywhere we went today we were stopped for the lack of the proper form. With this region being predominantly French, some places we could talk our way through, others not so much. Mercy help us if we don’t have the proper form when we again move to the German regions.

Once we got started, hit the top item on the must see tourist list, a 13th century church.

Didn’t take long to tire of that and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about the old town section. Ate, drank, and met a few interesting folks, including an American lady who has been living here for over 25 years.

Looks like tomorrow we will be heading for Zermatt, where we will get a look at the Matterhorn, weather permitting.