I didn’t plan to visit any attraction on this day as, apart from the international organisation, I was not particular interested in anything. What I had on this day was only a supersaver train ticket from Geneva to Lausanne, and a hostel reservation there.

I made a mistake of buying a non-stop train ticket to Lausanne, which was about 2.5 km past the hostel I was staying in rather than the nearest station which was only 1 km from the hostel, and no direct public transport runs on the direct route from the train station to the hostel as well, so I had to walk down to the hostel in the hot weather for 2.5 km, definitely not a pleasant thing to do.

After checking in to the hostel, I went along the promenade by route 24 bus. I visited the start beach for the next day’s race to see where exactly I should aim at during the race, but even with a map I couldn’t find it out clearly as the terrain on the opposite shore was so similar along the shore. There were also some swimmers practising for the race as well.

Monika, a local swimmer, invited us to have a dinner there so I joined, and there were about 10 of us went. There were many experienced marathon swimmers there like Jersey – France swimmers, or English Channel swimmers, but I wasn’t one yet, my prior race experience was only about 5 km.