Travel
How Gloria seduced 007
Long before Daniel Craig's Spectre, Bond saved the world at an Alpine restaurant - and he's been there ever since.
October 29, 2015 12:47
By
David Allsop
2 min read
Long before Daniel Craig's Spectre, Bond saved the world at an Alpine restaurant - and he's been there ever since.
October 29, 2015 12:47By
David Allsop
The Piz Gloria restaurant, 10,000ft above the Swiss village of Mürren on Mount Schilthorn, is still welcoming Bond fans nearly half a century after it became the villain's hideout in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
It was here that Blofeld (aka Telly Savalas, complete with white cat) plotted to destroy the British establishment.
Bond fans from all over the world are drawn not just by its jaw-dropping mountain panorama, but because of its permanent interactive exhibition known as Bond World.
The film introduced Sean Connery's replacement as former model George Lazenby - who was tasked with blowing up the place.
He recently returned for the first time since the film was made to lend his hand to a new Bond-themed experience known as the 007 Walk of Fame - quite literally as it turned out, because his palm and fist imprint are now permanently on display on a path leading to the viewing platform.
Getting there
Fly: SkyWork Airlines flies daily from London City Airport to Bern. Prices start from £115 one way.
Rail transfers: Prices from £104 for a return 2nd class journey. swisstravelsystem.co.uk
Visit: The Skyline Walk. This is a transparent platform that juts out over the cliffside giving an unhindered mountain panorama. Look down if you dare.
He was accompanied by co-stars Jenny Hanley and Catherine von Schell, now 68 and 72 respectively, along with other cast and crew members who recreated the scene in which Bond led a helicopter assault on the mountain stronghold, although this time they alighted a touch more arthritically.
Other Bond actors are expected to add their own imprints, signatures, personal messages and photographs, to create an Alpine version of the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.
Piz Gloria was intended to be the world's first revolving high-altitude restaurant but work stopped when the money ran out. The production company then stepped in and offered to complete it in return for using it as a film location. As it turns, diners get views of the Eiger, the Monch, the Jungfrau, and 197 other mountain summits. And it is almost certainly the only fictional Bond location still intact and still open to the public. Much of the décor remains unchanged in 46 years, such as the steel rings of the staircase balustrade into which Diana Rigg was thrown. It is common to see fans photographing each other with their heads stuck in the rings.
One floor down, visitors can try their hand at throwing Bond's trilby on to the coat stand in Miss Moneypenny's office, take a ride in a bobsleigh simulator, or fly a helicopter into the side of the mountain.
Visitors can arrive via the Schilthorn cable car over Mürren, and enjoy views of ancient chalets and Victorian hotels, to Piz Gloria and breathtaking Alpine landscape - and be greeted with the sound of the Bond theme tune.
The mountain top is also the beginning of its most infamous ski race - "The Inferno" - which is held in mid January. It is the oldest and longest amateur ski race in the world with up to 19,000 participants. Depending on snow conditions the course can be either six miles long to Mürren, or a stamina-sapping 11 miles to the floor of the Lauterbrunnen Valley. Among the racers dressed as gorillas and bananas there are a predictable number of Bonds in full evening attire - and even kilts (as worn by Lazenby in the film).
And it seems there is no shortage of ingenuity in the costume stakes: Blofeld often turns up with a stuffed white cat pinned to his shoulder.