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ARRIVING BY TRAIN FROM GENEVA, Lausanne is situated on the very large Lake Leman and this hotel is a mile or two downhill from the railway station.

It is advertised as the Beau Rivage Palace and indeed the whole building is rather like a palace, with its own private driveway leading up to the impressive entrance.

As you can imagine, the hotel has a magnificent classical dining room, which is one of the most sensational in Europe. There are two other restaurants. You can have breakfast outside on the picturesque patio overlooking the lake. The breakfast alone will keep you going all day. It is a feast: dishes ranging from caviar, smoked salmon, kippers, to all kinds of omelets and egg dishes made to order, as well as what the British call a "good fry-up." Plus about two dozen kinds of pastries, croissants, bread rolls, cheeses from the region, fruits and yogurts. The dinner menu is slightly different in each restaurant and there is a Head Chef for each room.

The hotel is made up of two hotels. In 1864 an extension was begun and in 1908 a magnificent rotunda added which is now the dining room. It is not until you see the hotel from the front gardens that you can see where they join up, but inside there is no difference. The architecture is the same: the main corridor runs through the whole hotel. It is a hotel full of history.

In 1898 Empress Elisabeth of Austria was staying at the hotel incognito, when she left to take the ferry to Geneva. Walking along the promenade with a friend, she was assassinated, dying shortly afterwards back at the hotel. She had been stabbed by a crazed man who was later caught, but he had plunged a knife into her bodice, which was so tight that it was another hour or so before it was discovered it had been a mortal blow. By that time it was too late to save her.

On July 14th 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in the hotel's magnificent dining room. The treaty settled the conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire, as well as the French Republic, Italy Japan and Greece. The original treaty was in French because it was the second time an attempt for peace was made after the failed Treaty at Sevres, which had been signed by all the previous parties but rejected by the Turkish National Movement. However this Treaty of Lausanne defined the borders of the modern Turkish Republic. In the treaty Turkey gave up all claims to the remainder of the Ottoman Empire.

My main interest in staying there was because Noel Coward stayed there when a young man and he reported in his diary what he wrote there. He would take a picnic, packed by the hotel, in a boat out on the lake, after writing in the morning. He often used to take the ferry in the evening to Evian in France, where there was a casino. Evidently he won quite frequently, and he said once, when he was on a winning streak, they held the last ferry for him.

He was a friend of the writer Somerset Maugham and Coward wrote a play called Suite in Three Keys which is based at the hotel. The script consists of three short plays and it is a well-known fact that one of the characters is based on Maugham. Maugham also wrote in his diary about staying there and enjoyed playing Bridge with other guests during his stay. Famous guests of the past included Victor Hugo, Coco Chanel, Saint-Saens, Sacha Guitry, Gary Cooper and more recently, Phil Collins.

The lakeside suites and room with balconies on the lakeside are the best for the view. The French Alps in the background, with the lake and the little sail boats in front. Old fashioned steamers glide by on their way up to Vevey or Montreux and it is very pleasant to spend the day sailing up the lake, having lunch or dinner on board. Charlie Chaplin lived just outside Vevey and you can see the house as the ferry draws into the dock. Each town has its celebrities.

We took the ferry one morning to Montreux, home of the famous Jazz Festival each year. We then took a tiny train, which climbs up the mountain behind the city, sometimes going through steep tunnels in the rock, to arrive at a village called Glion. The train stops there before continuing on to several other stops, until it reaches the top of the mountain, with its tremendous view of the valley below. We stopped at the famous old Victoria Hotel at Glion where many of Coward's friends stayed when they came to visit him at Chateau Coward, just a view miles away in the village of Les Avants where Dame Joan Sutherland was a neighbour. I searched and found the little English Cemetery in Glion where both Coward's companions are buried side by side, Cole Lesley and more recently, Graham Payn. The view from their grave sites is breathtaking, overlooking the whole valley below.

The little train station is very old and takes you back to Victorian times. You can take a cable car which is next to the train station; it goes straight down like a lift, as you can see the cable line descending in a straight line. We chose to take the more leisurely train back down to Montreux. As you sail back to Lausanne, the Beau Rivage Hotel sign is painted across the front of the hotel, as in earlier times, as seen in the old brochures. The hotel has its own steamer and has dinner cruises on the lake, especially enjoyable when there is a full moon. The atmosphere is so peaceful and old fashioned: it reminds you of the days when travelers did the Grand Tour of Europe, staying at these elegant hotels. Porters would stick their hotel labels on your luggage as you left. I still have an old suitcase belonging to my grandmother with some of those old labels still attached. It is a marvelous place to visit when you are next in Europe.