Lausanne Cathedral

Listen for a moment. Above the traffic of the lower town, the air on this hilltop is quieter. Your feet rest on old paving, and the cool grey sandstone of the cathedral rises in front of you. It is a soft, greenish stone, worn smooth in places by weather and by centuries of hands. Behind you, the city drops away toward the long blue line of Lake Geneva. Ahead, the stone climbs into towers, buttresses and pointed arches.

This is Lausanne Cathedral, dedicated to Notre-Dame, Our Lady. Many historians count it among the finest Gothic buildings in Switzerland. Gothic is the style of tall pointed arches, ribbed vaults and large windows. It spread from northern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Builders here took that new French way of building and set it on a Swiss hill, high above the lake.

The hill itself matters. This part of the old town is called the Cité. For a very long time it was the seat of the bishops of Lausanne, the centre of religious and political power in the region. The cathedral stands at the highest point, so it can be seen from far away. It was made to be seen, as a sign of faith and authority, from the lake, the fields and the roads below.

Most of the cathedral went up over the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In 1275 the building was consecrated, which means formally dedicated for worship. The ceremony was grand. Pope Gregory the Tenth came in person. Rudolf of Habsburg, the newly chosen king of the Germans, came too. It was a rare moment, and it put a small hilltop town at the centre of European attention for a few days.

Now look for the Painted Portal. It is a thirteenth-century doorway on the south side, filled with carved figures of saints, prophets and apostles. Here is the first surprise. Medieval cathedrals were not grey. They were painted in strong colours. In most churches those colours disappeared long ago. At Lausanne, protected for centuries by a later porch, much of the original paint has survived. You can still see the reds, blues and ochres that medieval visitors saw.

Inside, let your eyes adjust to the dimmer light. The nave is the long central hall, and it rises in clean, pale stone. Notice how plain the walls are. That plainness is not medieval. It comes from the Reformation, the religious movement of the sixteenth century that split Western Christianity. In 1536, troops from Bern took control of this region. Soon after, the cathedral became a Protestant church. It is still Protestant today.

The change was dramatic. Altars, statues and decorations were removed. Wall paintings were covered over. Services became centred on the spoken word, not on images. So the space you stand in carries two lives at once. The architecture is Catholic and medieval. The way it is used, and its quiet, open emptiness, comes from the Reformed tradition. Look up at the vaults and down at the bare floor, and you can feel both.

Now find the great rose window. It is a large round window of stained glass, made in the thirteenth century. Here is the second surprise. It does not tell a story from the Bible. It shows a picture of the whole medieval universe. In its panels you can find the four seasons, the signs of the zodiac, the labours of the months and the elements of the natural world. It is a map of creation, as people of the Middle Ages understood it.

Take your time with it. Each small panel shows something human and practical. A figure works in the fields. Another warms himself in winter. Animals and strange creatures fill the edges. For a person in the thirteenth century, this window placed daily work and the turning of the year inside a sacred order. On a bright day, the coloured light falls across the stone floor, and the patterns move slowly as the sun moves.

In the nineteenth century, the cathedral was in poor condition, and a long restoration began. The famous French architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, known for restoring Notre-Dame in Paris, was involved in plans for the work. Restorers then and later replaced damaged stone, strengthened the structure and repaired the towers. As you walk around, look at the stonework closely. Some blocks are darker and weathered. Others are cleaner and sharper. The walls show many generations of repair.

Listen for the organ, if it is playing. The cathedral installed a large new organ in the early 2000s, built by an American workshop. Its case has an unusual, sculpted shape, high in the west end of the church. The instrument can play music from many periods, and it is often used for concerts. When it sounds in full, the low notes travel through the stone, and you feel them in your chest as much as you hear them.

Here is something that most daytime visitors miss. Lausanne Cathedral still has a night watchman. Every night, from ten in the evening until two in the morning, a watchman climbs the tower. After each hour strikes, he calls out over the rooftops, in French, to announce that the watch is here and the hour has rung. This tradition has continued for centuries. In the past, the watchman looked for fires in the wooden town below. Today the call is a living link to that older city.

Before you leave, step back outside and turn toward the lake. The roofs of the old town fall away below you in red and brown tiles. Beyond them is the water, and on clear days the mountains of France stand on the far shore. When you walk down, you may take the covered wooden staircase toward the market square. Listen to your footsteps on the old boards. And if you come back tonight, stand quietly here, look up at the tower... and wait for the watchman's voice.