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The Lausanne Palace and Spa
The Lausanne Palaceand Spa
You look wistfully down from Lausanne Palaceand Spa, and long for someone to share yourbottle
By: Mary Gostelow
Yes, this is a very romantic place, but it is also big-businesstoo. This is headquarter hotel for the Olympics, and regularmeeting place for the Rich, Famous and Wannabe-both.
It only looks like five minutes' walk from Lausanne’s fabulous rail stationtoLausanne Palace and Spa, and it is tempting to think there is noeasier way to get here from Geneva’s Cointrin airport. Fast trains runevery ten minutes or so and take under an hour, speeding along thesouthern shore of Lac Léman. Arrive at Lausanne and the rail station isspotlessly clean. There are tempting aromas of fresh-baked bread fromthe cafés within the complex. A good harpist is playing. Only fiveminutes’ walk, I deduced from the map, ahead of time. Ah ha, rue duPetit-Chêne is cobblestoned, and at an angle of about 40 degrees, andit was a hot day in Lausanne. I had an extremely good aerobic workout,therefore, by the time I arrived at the 146-room hotel, on stately rue duGrand-Chêne.A doorman in gray, with a scarlet peaked cap that matched the threecarpeted entrance steps on which he stood, immediately took my bag,and escorted me into the lobby. To your left, facing ahead, is reception.To your right is the conciergerie, which has a pile of satellited globalnewssheets on the desk (the British one is headlined ‘PM: we will changethe world’, yawn yawn). After checking in, I was given a chic chocolate-brown booklet with details of the hotel’s facilities, and escorted up toSuite 401.Go into the suite and the toggle on your metal key, inserted into afunnel holder on the wall, activates power. You enter via a sizeablefoyer, on to parlor, left to bedroom, back to bathroom. Both mainrooms have French windows, allowing fresh air – the wrought ironbalcony outside is barely wide enough for a size-zero model – and thebedroom has an additional four-foot oval window in its one curvedcorner. Carpeting throughout is long-life, looks like seagrass but is soft,mostly sandalwood with dark brown outline but parlor has inset ‘carpet’with colors reversed. Walls everywhere are darker sandalwood plainfabric. Woodwork is cream, as are full-length drapes. An eight-foot sidetable in the foyer holds two simple sand-colored pots, and a Nespressomachine. The parlor has simple, stark-lines dark wood furniture, slightlyArts & Craft Movement style: the big-box armoire has four big, squaregold handles. The square table has four saffron-suede-seat dining chairs,and cushions on the deep chocolate suede easy chairs and three-seatsofa are saffron or deep chocolate. Three abstract watercolors abovethe sofa are, well, blobs of pastel colors on white. There is an eight-foottall dead tree in a wood pot, and a white vase holds a three-foot arrayof white roses. A tall white orchid stands in front of the gilt-edged mirrorabove the decorative marble-mantel fireplace.There is a back-to-back decorative fireplace in the bedroom, with anabstract painting over. The bed is made up with all-natural fibers,Lounge, with a tempting array of vegetarian pâtés and exotic juices. Iwas escorted to an all-white cabine with lots of daylight, lay down for a50-minute back and leg massage and promptly fell asleep during thewhole rigmarole.The gym looks out over the lake – it has masses of the latest Technogymequipment, and Pilates balls. Next came the pool, about 40 ft long, andamply wide for three to swim laps at once. This was a delight as themain long wall has two inset trompe l’oeil frescoes of crumbling Italianvillas (I am sure no ancient villa in Switzerland ever crumbled like this!).Overhead, a wavy blue ceiling was inset with thousand of fiber opticlights. And next, in this saga of keeping fit, came a visit to the ladies’only spa, for the vitality pool, hammam and log cabin-look sauna.Lausanne is all about keeping fit, by the way. There are at least 27global sporting headquarters in the area, including the InternationalOlympic Committee IOC. Lausanne Palace is the official IOC hotel, anddelegations and meetings always use it: at the final presentation of the2016 Olympics bids, all four final contenders were allocated the samenumber of rooms, the same meeting space (the nations all brought in atleast 220 supporters so other hotels benefited too). Lausanne Palaceand Spa, which dates back to 1915, has for the last 20 years been ownedby the Funke family. GM Jean-Jacques Gauer arrived in 1996, and hehas made it a really lively place. On November 6th, 2009, thegastronomic Les Tables d’Hôtes re-opened, as an intimate 50-seatdining place with interactive kitchen. You also have the choice ofeating, day and evening long, at the street-side Parisian-style Brasseriedu Grand-Chêne, or traditional Japanese at Palace Sushi-Zen: inSummer you can dine on the terrace of Côté Jardin and on the bar frontyou have Le Cellier, the Habana cigar bar, LP’s live-music bar, Red Clubfor night owls and La Grappa.But, says our good friend Jean-Jacques Gauer, let’s go out for dinner,namely down to the Ouchy area of Lausanne, by the lake. Here inDecember 2008, he and his team re-opened the incredibly trendy 50-room Château d’Ouchy boutique hotel, modern-architecturemagnificently juxtaposed into the existing 1604-vintage mini-castle.First, a quick tour of the hotel, with medieval towers juxtaposed withmodern glass-walled walkways and extensions, and two strikingsculptures by Igor Ustinov, son of Peter. The casual dining room here is aglass conservatory, with cream leather semi-circular bankettes andcream linens, and plain white Limoges. We drink local wines, a glass ofwhite L’Yvorne Dme de l’Ovaille 2008 Deladoey & Fils and, for red,Guido Brivio Dogaia 2006, a Merlot blend from Ticino. I also dine local,freshest tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella, followed by fritto misto ofSign up for the FreeWOW ConfidentialNewsletter
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