LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Columbia men’s basketball is currently on a 12-day foreign tour through Switzerland and Italy.
The Lions will spend three nights in Switzerland and seven nights in Italy before returning to the United States on Tuesday, Aug. 22. Fans can stay tuned to this page along with the Columbia men’s basketball Twitter and Instagram pages for daily updates and content throughout the team’s tour. To view the trip’s full itinerary, click here.
Day 3 – Swiss Cheese Factory Tour & Exhibition Game 1
The Lions traveled about 25 miles Monday morning to Gruyères for a tour of La Maison du Gruyère, a Swiss Cheese Factory. The team got to sample a few different cheeses and see how it is made. Following the tour, the stop continued in the town of Gruyères and the team got to visit shops and restaurants in the area around Gruyères Castle. Around lunch time, the Lions returned to the hotel to spend the afternoon at their leisure before leaving around 4 p.m. local time for the first exhibition game of the tour.
The Lions earned a 75-69 victory over the Pully-Lausanne Foxes at Salle Omnisports – Vallée de la Jeunesse on Monday evening. In front of a packed house in Lausanne, Noah Robledo and Zavian McLean each scored in double figures for the Lions while Jaden Cooper was named the game’s MVP in a postgame ceremony. The Lions opened up a game-high 14-point lead late in the first half. Columbia led 34-23 after the first 20 minutes of play and held a one-point advantage heading into the fourth quarter.
Day 2 – Hiking in the Swiss Alps
The Lions got out to an early start on Sunday morning. Following breakfast at the hotel, the team boarded the bus around 8 a.m. local time and headed to Lauterbrunnen. There, Columbia strolled around town before getting on a train to Wengen. The Lions then took a gondola ride up into the mountains. The team then ensued on roughly a 90-minute hike through Männlichen trail before taking the train back into town to get the bus back to the hotel. After returning to the hotel around 6:30 p.m. the players got to spend the evening at their leisure.
Day 1 – Arrival in Switzerland
The Lions landed in Geneva, Switzerland around 11 a.m. local time on Saturday. From the airport, the team traveled to Lausanne to spend the afternoon there. The stop included a guided tour of the Olympic Museum.
Source : From there, the team bused about a half hour east to the hotel in Montreux, which overlooks the shore line of Lake Geneva and has a view of the Swiss Alps. Columbia then regrouped in the evening for a team dinner at Le Museum, a Swiss Cuisine restaurant that was walking distance from the hotel.
Source : Columbia Sport