•Written by The Editors• ••Friday•, 10 •October• 2008 19:24•
The Florentine Palais de Rumine stands out as a dominant feature of the old town of Lausanne below the cathedral and only several minutes walk from the main downtown shopping area or metro ride from the railway station. So if you're fed up with shopping, or if you have an hour or two on your hands and want to visit a clutch of museums, particularly with children, this is a good choice.
The building, in fact, houses several museums. One floor is dedicated to the Cantonal Museum of Archaeology and History, another to the Museum of Zoology, and another to the Museum of Geology. Then there is the library. A pity though – except on the first Saturday of each month – that the Museum charges (albeit only 6 CHF for adults) with children free. The British Museums have learned that the way to attract new generations and their parents is to make them accessible to all so that people will be encouraged to drop by, even if only for short visits.
The collections are modest but certainly inspiring, particularly for my eight-year-old son who was fascinated by the archaeological exhibits showing recreated digs with real skeletons and the highly realistic model of a dead Neolithic chief laid out on a funeral bier. He also exalted in the geological displays of ultra-violet-lit crystals but above all, on the top floor, the formaldehyde jars with human foetuses plus the six-legged calf, the two-headed lamb and the headless goat! Great stuff for vivid young minds.
Overall, the museum offers intriguing insight into the fact that the people who first here lived in the Lake Geneva region were first nomadic hunter-gathers at the foot of the Jura. Then, around 5.500 BC they turned to agriculture and livestock with settlements established along the shores of Lakes Geneva, Neuchatel and Morat. They left behind countless artifacts, such as ceramics, baskets, fabrics, spears, and wooden objects. You can then proceed through the ages in the form of small but well-out exhibts o the Romans, the kings of Burgundy, the rule of Berne and the Savoy kings.
The museum also organizes children’s activities during the holiday periods, such as rock painting, baking bread with flour ground in the Neolithic manner and the sharpening of arrow and spear heads using grindstones.
The Museum of Geology explains that – some 200 million years ago – at the end of the Triassic and the beginning of the Jurassic period – Switzerland did not exist. It was a sea. The Alps had not yet been formed, and only a few beaches had emerged. This is why only a few dinosaur traces have been found in the Jura mountains. However, these ancient and worn highlands abound with ammonites, squid, shells and other marine fossils. Being land animals, the dinosaurs were not very likely to visit here. Nonetheless, we can form an idea of these distant Mesozoic ancestors by greeting an immense plateosaurus and by trembling at the sight of a pterosaur with a wingspan of 4.5 metres.
The Museum offers visitors other treasures, including the 16,000-year-old skeleton of a mammoth, one of the most complete ever found in Europe. There is also an enormous molar discovered in 1897, which came from a hippopotamus that grazed along the tropical river banks of Morges around 1.8 million years ago. Mineralogy enthusiasts can discover the fantastic collection of a thousand minerals that once belonged to Tsar Alexander I, These were brought to Lausanne by his tutor, Frédéric-César de La Harpe.
The main attraction is the replica of the Welcome Nugget, the largest gold nugget ever recorded, weighing in at 57.3 kg. It did not seem to bother my son that this is not the real thing but fascinated by the story that the original Australian nugget was melted down in London in 1859.
The attached Museum-School shows documentary films and provides educational information for teachers.
Finally, the children’s workshop organizes learning activities: hunting for fossils, the world of crystals, and field trips (caves, Bex salt mines, Cambot’s erratic rock, etc.). reated in 1818, the Cantonal Museum of Zoology brought together the old collections mentioned in a 1779 manuscript: “678 shells, 377 fossils, 239 foreign and indigenous birds, a small collection of snakes from Surinam and some quadrupeds preserved in spirits…” Today, it houses immense and exciting collections, along with a library containing more than 5,300 books.
Apart from bizarre jars and stuffed animals, the permanent exhibition in the Museum of Zoology on the top floor introduces the main groups of vertebrates, while the comparative anatomy room presents skeletons and jarred specimens in incredible detail. The entomological collections (insects) are certainly the forte of the museum, including an exhibit on the world of ants. Myrmecology (the study of ants) has been a major part of the Museum of Zoology since 1982, with the arrival of several researchers in the field. The rooms devoted to regional wildlife and cryptozoology (the study of animals not yet known in science) are closed for work until around 2010.
For children, the museum organizes tours through the galleries and allows classes to come and discover the ants. The museum’s cinema shows documentaries on subjects as varied as polar bears, dinosaurs, volcanoes and rainforests. And here’s the icing on the cake: you can set up birthday parties with treasure hunts and a small bonus film!
Contact: Palais de Rumine Place de la Riponne 6 CH-1014 Lausanne Tel: +4121 316 34 60 / Fax:+4121 316 34 79
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