Lausanne Olympic Museum

A unique, lively and interactive exhibition, the Olympic Museum is the world's largest information centre relating to the Olympic Games.

The Lausanne Olympic Museum is a gallery of memories and souvenirs, where everyone can nurture the torch they hold for the Olympics. Young and old, individuals and groups come to explore the different emotionally-charged exhibition areas that are so full of history.

Opening hours:
From May to September, every day.
From October to April, Tuesday to Sunday.

Swiss Religion

Switzerland is divided into 26 cantons, whose borders often mark religious and linguistic areas. Most cantons were created with either a Protestant majority (like Geneva and Zurich) or a Catholic one (like Valais, Fribourg and Lucerne). Where two communities share the same territory, cantons are divided into half-cantons. For example, Basle City (Protestant) and Basle Country (Catholic). Mentalities vary greatly, according to factors such as religion, language and whether people live in town or the country. Thus, people from rural, Catholic, German- speaking cantons have a very different mentality from those living in Geneva.
In Catholic, rural areas, people are not inhibited at all to spend their money for expensive cars or Texas-sized houses, and feel a duty toward their family at large. Corporate paternalism and nepotism are seen as values. Family and quality of life tend to be rated higher than profit, especially when people have worked hard enough above basic needs to be wealthy by their community’s standards. Those who build corporate empires are seen as lacking common sense, and the point of piling up many times more money that one can use is not understood. These differences in Weltanschauung exist even among people who are not religious in the least.
The work ethic is strong throughout Switzerland, but the reasons for this vary. In Protestant cities like Zurich or Geneva, the driving force is morality, the conviction that only those who work hard will be redeemed (read Max Weber), whereas in rural and Catholic cantons, where poverty ruled only 50 years ago, working hard has always been the only way of surviving for the mountain peasants. Today, people are much better off, but the ethic of hard work remains strong.

Roger Federer

Roger Federer born August 8, 1981) is a former World No. 1 Swiss professional tennis player. Federer's success has prompted a number of tennis critics, legendary players, and current players to consider him to be the greatest tennis player in history.
Federer has won twelve Grand Slam singles titles (three Australian Open, five Wimbledon, four US Open), four Tennis Masters Cup titles, and fourteen ATP Masters Series titles. Federer holds many records in the game, including having appeared in ten consecutive Grand Slam men's singles finals (2005 Wimbledon Championships through the 2007 US Open) and 17 consecutive Grand Slam singles semifinals (2004 Wimbledon - present). He also holds the open era records for consecutive wins on both grass courts (65) and hard courts (56). At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Federer won the men's doubles gold medal for Switzerland, partnering with Stanislas Wawrinka. He has a storied rivalry with Rafael Nadal.
In 2008, he was named Laureus World Sportsman of the Year for a record fourth consecutive time.

Berne

The city of Berne or Bern is the Bundesstadt(federal city, de facto capital) of Switzerland and, with 128,041 people (agglomeration: 344,000), the fifth most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich, Geneva, Basel and Lausanne).
Most of Berne's residents speak German, or more specifically, Bernese German, which is a high-Alemannic dialect.
Berne also functions as the capital of the Canton of Berne, the second most populous of Switzerland's cantons.
Illustrious Bernese include the reformer Albrecht von Haller, the poet Albert Bitzius and the painters Hans Fries, Ferdinand Hodler and Paul Klee. The German-born physicist Albert Einstein worked out his theory of relativity while employed as a clerk at the Berne patent office. A culturally important person was Mani Matter, a songwriter performing in Bernese German.

Flight above the alps

Swiss Chocolate

Switzerland's chocolates, together with its timepieces and machinery, have earned an international reputation for high quality.Chocolate came to Europe in the 16th century. By the 17th century it was produced in Switzerland. In the 18th century chocolate was only produced in a few areas, such as the Ticino.
From the 19th century until the the First World War and throughout the second world war the Swiss chocolate industry was very export orientated. After the Second World War Switzerland began to outsource production due to commercial restrictions.
Today most Swiss chocolate is consumed by the Swiss themselves (54% in 2000), and Switzerland has the highest per capita rate of chocolate consumption world wide (11.6 kg per capita per annum).
In 2004 148,270 tonnes of chocolate were produced in Switzerland. 53% of this was exported (20% to Germany, 11% to France and Great Britain and 13% to North America). The gross income of the Swiss chocolate industry in 2004 was 1,365 million CHF (814 million from the local market, 551 million from exports).

Zürich

Zürich is the largest city of Switzerland (at the end of 2007; population of urban area is 1,007,972) and capital of canton of Zürich.The city is Switzerland's main commercial and cultural centre (the political capital of Switzerland being Bern), and is widely considered to be one of the world's global cities. According to several surveys from 2006 to 2008, Zürich was named the city with the "best quality of life" in the world.The city is situated where the river Limmat issues from the north-western end of Lake Zürich, about 30 km north of the Alps. Zürich is surrounded by wooded hills including (from the north) the Gubrist, the Hönggerberg, the Käferberg, the Zürichberg, the Adlisberg and the Oettlisberg on the eastern shore; and the Uetliberg (part of the Albis range) on the western shore. The river Sihl meets with the Limmat at the end of Platzspitz, which borders the Swiss National Museum (Landesmuseum). The geographic (and historic) center of the city is the Lindenhof a small natural hill on the left bank of the river Limmat, about 700 meters north of where the river issues from Lake Zürich. Today the incorporated city stretches somewhat beyond its natural hydrographic confines given by its hills and includes some neighborhoods to the northeast in the Glattal (valley of the river Glatt).