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Switzerland’s ‘James Bond mountain’ set for new cable car link

The cable car service which takes visitors up to the Piz Gloria restaurant that starred in the 1969 Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service is set for a makeover.

Published: 14 September 2018 20:41 CEST

Switzerland’s 'James Bond mountain' set for new cable car link

The Piz Gloria was the world's first revolving restaurant. Photo: Switzerland Tourism

The plan is to replace the existing cable car link with a faster, more frequent service.

The arrival of the new cable car service would see the transit time from Stechelberg to the top of the 2,970-metre mountain (a spectacular climb of 2,103 metres) cut from 32 minutes to just 19 minutes.

The new three-stage service would “not be bigger, but better,” said the cable car operator in a press release.

The existing Stechelberg-Gimmelwald-Mürren cable car service will keep running to ensure regular public transport connections on the valley floor, Swiss regional daily Berner Zeitung reported.

The Piz Gloria restaurant – which was still being built when it was used as a location for On Her Majesty's Secret Service– is popular with James Bond fans, even offering a James Bond brunch. It offers stunning views of the Jungfrau, Eiger and Mönch summits.

In the 1969 film – the only Bond movie to star Australia’s George Lazenby as the world's most famous secret agent – the restaurant, which revolves 360 degrees every 55 minutes, was the lair of Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Read also: On location – 10 famous films shot in Switzerland

WATCH: New Bond film begins filming in southern Italy... with a car chase

Matera: not a bad backdrop for a car chase. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

Filming on No Time To Die, 007's 25th movie outing and the fifth and final time he'll be played by Daniel Craig, arrived in this year's European Capital of Culture on Sunday.

Originally slated to begin in April, the shoot got off to an appropriate start: with an Aston Martin speeding through Matera's scenic streets.

Watched by a curious crowd, the crew closed down part of the city centre as stunt doubles – including what looked to be a long-haired blonde in the passenger seat – shot off on a car chase, the spy's distinctive silver DB5 in pursuit of another vehicle.

Craig himself is expected to arrive in Matera in the next few days, for a shoot that will last nearly four weeks and bring an estimated €12 million of investment to the city.

Some 400 jobs are expected to be created by the production, not to mention the knock-on boost for tourism that's likely to follow once the film comes out in April 2020.

READ ALSO: Matera, Italy's city of caves, contrasts, and culture

As well as the scenes by Matera's grand cathedral and ancient, Unesco-listed cave houses, some sequences will be shot in the neighbouring region of Puglia.

The crew picked Gravina di Puglia in the province of Bari, a town famous for its dramatic two-level Roman bridge spanning a ravine, as the film's second southern Italian location.

Gravina di Puglia. Photo: Depositphotos

Bond is well-travelled in Italy, having had memorable escapades over the years in Venice, Rome, Siena, by Lakes Como and Garda, in the mountains of Cortina D'Ampezzo and on the Sardinian coast, but this is the first time the secret agent has headed to the far south of the mainland.

No Time To Die will also feature locations in Norway, Jamaica and the UK, with a supporting cast that includes Naomie Harris as Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw as Q, Ralph Fiennes as M, Léa Sedoux as Madeleine Swann, and Rami Malek as the as yet unnamed villain.

READ ALSO: James Bond's best Italian moments

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