Lausanne: four palace hotels, and the one that undercuts them all
Lake Geneva's grandest hotels sit within two kilometres of each other, and the cheapest of them runs at a third of the dearest. All four share one free rewards club that we have measured cutting up to 10.7% off the public rate.
Lausanne is a city built on a hill that could not decide how steep to be. It climbs from the lake at Ouchy to the cathedral on the ridge in about four hundred vertical metres, which is why the metro is the only one in Switzerland that qualifies as a funicular in disguise, and why every view in the place is downhill toward water.
It has four hotels on our list that call themselves palaces, all within two kilometres of one another, and the gap between the cheapest and the dearest is larger than most people would guess.
Across that water is France: the Savoy Alps rise straight out of the far shore, and on a clear evening they turn pink about twenty minutes before the city does.
The four, cheapest first
Hôtel Angleterre & Résidence from USD 209 - and this is the one worth knowing about. It sits on the Ouchy waterfront in a building where **Lord Byron wrote The Prisoner of Chillon in 1816**, holed up during the famously wet summer that also produced Frankenstein a few kilometres along the shore. Forty-eight checks, a floor of USD 209 ≈ €187 and a typical of USD 321 ≈ €287. That is a third of what Beau-Rivage costs and a five-minute walk along the same quay.
Lausanne Palace from USD 374 - up in the centre, on the ridge, with the lake below it rather than in front of it. Fifty-nine checks; USD 374 ≈ €334 at its floor against USD 391 ≈ €349 typical, which makes it one of the steadiest expensive hotels we follow. You are not waiting for a bargain here; there mostly isn't one.
Royal Savoy Hotel & Spa from USD 390 - a turreted 1909 pile that reopened after a long renovation, between the centre and the lake. USD 390 ≈ €349 low, USD 480 ≈ €429 typical.
Beau-Rivage Palace from USD 566 - the grand one, 1861, in its own park at Ouchy. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne was signed here, which is the sort of detail the hotel does not need to mention and mentions anyway. USD 566 ≈ €506 at its cheapest across fifty-five checks.
There is a fifth on the list further along the shore: Grand Hôtel du Lac from USD 514, in Vevey, twenty minutes by train. USD 514 ≈ €459 low, USD 578 ≈ €517 typical, and remarkably flat - a 20% swing across everything we have seen.
The rewards club that actually pays
All four Lausanne hotels belong to Leading Hotels of the World, and its free tier, Leaders Club, shows a member rate directly on the booking engine, beside the public one.
Two examples:
- Beau-Rivage Palace - USD 755 ≈ €675 member against USD 795 ≈ €711 public, a 5.0% saving
- Lausanne Palace - USD 511 ≈ €457 member against USD 572 ≈ €511 public, 10.7%
Joining is free and takes a couple of minutes.
One warning: on this chain the member rate is frequently displayed first, and the public rate is hidden behind a "View more rates" link. If you are comparing hotels while signed out, you may be looking at a price you cannot actually book. Click through.
What to do with the days
The cathedral, Notre-Dame de Lausanne, consecrated in 1275, is the finest Gothic building in Switzerland, and two things make it unusual. The painted portal has been restored to its medieval polychrome - a reminder that Gothic cathedrals were not the grey stone we imagine but violently colourful. And it still employs a night watchman: since 1405, someone has called the hours from the belfry between ten at night and two in the morning, every night, and you can hear it from the streets below. In daylight you can climb the 224 steps of the tower for the view over the roofs to the lake.
The Palais de Rumine on Place de la Riponne holds several cantonal museums in one Florentine- revival pile - archaeology, geology and fine arts. Free on the first Saturday of the month.
Plateforme 10 is the newer counterweight: three art museums grouped beside the railway station in converted industrial buildings, opened in stages through the early 2020s.
The Olympic Museum at Ouchy - Lausanne has been the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee since 1915, which is why the city calls itself the Olympic Capital and why there is a park full of sculpture along the waterfront.
The scenic routes, and they are the point
This is the part that turns a cheap hotel into a good week.
The Lavaux terraces are the reason to come. Between Lausanne and Vevey the south-facing slope is covered in dry-stone-walled vineyards running right down to the water - about 800 hectares of them, UNESCO World Heritage since 2007, worked since the eleventh century when Cistercian monks cut the first terraces. The path from Lutry to St-Saphorin takes three to four hours on foot through the vines, with cellar doors open along the way and villages every couple of kilometres. The regional train runs below it if you would rather ride one way and walk the other. The locals say the vines get three suns: the sky, the reflection off the lake, and the heat held overnight in the walls.
The boats. CGN runs the largest fleet of Belle Époque paddle steamers in the world - eight of them on Lake Geneva, some over a century old, several still steam-driven and all restored. They run scheduled services, not excursions: Ouchy to Chillon, or across to Évian on the French shore, and the Swiss Travel Pass covers them.
Château de Chillon at Montreux, an hour away by boat, is the island fortress on a rock in the lake that Byron wrote about and the most visited historic building in the country. The approach from the water is the right way to arrive.
Into the mountains. Gruyères for the cheese and the castle, the Rochers-de-Naye cog railway above Montreux for the 2,042-metre view, and the lakes of the Fribourg pre-Alps are all inside ninety minutes.
When to go
The cheapest Lausanne nights we have found cluster outside July and August and away from the big conference weeks. The lake is at its best in late May and September, the Lavaux harvest runs through late September and October, and the city empties in a way it never does in midsummer.
One thing worth deciding on top of the dates: whether to take breakfast. At a palace hotel it is frequently a genuine event rather than a formality, and often the best-value meal you will eat all week - which is the opposite of the calculation in a city where breakfast is just breakfast.
The rule here is the same as everywhere on this site, but sharper because the spread is wider: pick the week, then join the free club, then book. Between the two you are frequently looking at a palace hotel for the price of a decent business one.
The rest of the roll
Everything else we came back with from this trip - ours, taken on the days described above. Click any of them to see it properly.
