Best time to visit Lausanne

Switzerland · Europe

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Lausanne

Tap a month for its page

Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Go in Apr–Sep — these months score within a whisker of each other; 26C max, 8 rainy days. Oct is the next best.

Plan this trip

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Flights

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Where to stay

Things to do

Car hire

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Things to do in Lausanne

Notre Dame cathedral At the summit of the mountain that the old town is built on.
Olympic Museum The museum advertises itself as presenting "wealth of memories which will keep your…
Palais de Rumine Based on an Italian renaissance design, this lovely building is not as old as it looks.
Collection de l'Art Brut This must-see collection of works by untrained artists will at turns delight, amaze…
Musée de l'Elysée A world-class photography museum, located in a splendid park.
Théâtre de Vidy Theatre production company in theater

Tours and tickets in Lausanne

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Lausanne), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.

Month by month

No fare history for this route yet, so this ranking is climate and crowds only — the price column will fill in as the scanner collects.

Month	Max °C	Rain days	Humidity	Sun h/day	Verdict	Why
Jan	5°	11d	79%	5.4h	avoid	bitter cold: 5C daily max
Feb	8°	8d	77%	6.9h	ok	8C max, 8 rainy days
Mar	11°	10d	75%	8.6h	ok	11C max, 10 rainy days
Apr	15°	8d	70%	10.4h	sweet spot	15C max, 8 rainy days
May	18°	12d	73%	10.9h	sweet spot	18C max, 12 rainy days
Jun	24°	10d	69%	12.6h	sweet spot	24C max, 10 rainy days
Jul	26°	8d	64%	13.0h	sweet spot busy	busier than usual
Aug	25°	6d	67%	11.6h	sweet spot busy	busier than usual
Sep	21°	9d	73%	10.0h	sweet spot	21C max, 9 rainy days
Oct	15°	10d	80%	7.6h	good	15C max, 10 rainy days
Nov	9°	12d	83%	5.7h	avoid	9C max, 12 rainy days
Dec	6°	13d	83%	4.7h	avoid	bitter cold: 6C daily max

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at the centre: ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.

A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.

How busy it gets

Busiest in July and August; quietest in December and January.

Then and now

Lausanne's June days now average 23.7°C, 5.0°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 8 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	4.0°	4.9°	7.9°	11.3°	15.5°	18.7°	22.2°	21.4°	18.7°	14.9°	8.7°	5.3°
2017–26	4.7°	7.6°	10.5°	14.5°	17.8°	23.7°	25.6°	25.4°	20.6°	15.5°	9.1°	5.8°
Change	+0.7°	+2.7°	+2.6°	+3.2°	+2.2°	+5.0°	+3.4°	+4.1°	+1.8°	+0.6°	+0.4°	+0.5°

The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.

Getting there

Fly into Geneva (GVA), then drive. The flights under Where to book are to Geneva.

The drive from each airport is the road's, from openrouteservice.org by HeiGIT: typical, not a schedule.

How far Lausanne is, and what it costs, depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Type C plugs at 230 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the Swiss franc. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Everything for Switzerland: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — Cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay are accepted almost everywhere, and cash still works. Locals often pay with TWINT, a Swiss payment app; a visitor can simply use a card.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — Service is included by law; round up or add up to about 10% in restaurants if you were pleased. Never required.

Getting around Lausanne

Apps — Rides: Bolt, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: WhatsApp.

Walking is a great way to get around Lausanne. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Lausanne, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Help

Emergency — 112 (any emergency) · police 117 · ambulance 144 · fire 118.
TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.

Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (25)

Lausanne in pictures

View of Lausanne from Place du Chateau — i

Krzysztof Golik, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

2013 Longines Global Champions Lausanne 14 09 2013 Evren alam et Moritz W — i

Clément Bucco-Lechat, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Palais de Justice de Montbenon Lausanne Effet fisheye GT August 2024 — i

Terragio67, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Town hall of Lausanne 01 — i

Krzysztof Golik, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

NLA, Lausanne HC vs. Rapperswil Jona Lakers, 11th November 2014 03 — i

Fabien Perissinotto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What Lausanne is like

Lausanne, (pronounced [lozan]) the capital of the Swiss canton of Vaud, is a city of 140,000 people (2020) that sits at the northernmost point of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman). It is the public transport hub of Vaud, and a gateway to the alpine Canton of the Valais, home to some of the best-known ski slopes in the world. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: Collection de l'Art Brut, Av. des Bergières 11 (bus 2 toward Désert, stop at Jomini, bus 3 toward Bellevaux, stop Beaulieu). More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing: Explore The Old Town. From the railway station you can take the convenient metro up to either Flon, Riponne or Bessières (close to the cathedral). More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: The closest airport, Geneva airport (GVA IATA) is served by almost all European carriers, and by four daily trans-Atlantic flights, one from Washington-Dulles on Continental, one from New York, JFK on Swiss… More on Wikivoyage
Staying safe: Lausanne by day is quite safe for a city of its size. By night, however, it does take on a bit of an edge. More on Wikivoyage
Staying healthy: Dial 144 for emergency telephone assistance (in French). CHUV, Rue du Bugnon 46. 24 hour emergency medical care at this, the University Hospital of Canton Vaud. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Lausanne, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.

Around Lausanne

Also in Switzerland

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Kind of place

Cities

Lausanne is in Switzerland, Europe. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

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