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| India Today Plus 01 - 09 - 2002 |
| Bonding with the best |
 A heady combination: champagne, a vista of mountain peaks and a 3,000-m-high,
revolving restaurant. Rashmi Uday Singh visits 007 Schilthorn in the Swiss
Alps.
IT'S PURE JAMES BOND! Gliding in a revolving restaurant on a Swiss mountain
peak and getting higher on a champagne breakfast! Beaded bubbles wink at
the glass brim, as the mountains and I soar upwards.
Welcome to 007 Schilthorn, the 360o panorama revolving restaurant
especially built for the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
It was here that macho hunk swooped down in helicopters and swerved and
skied down snowy slopes. He cavorted with long-legged, half-dressed beauties,
(including our very own Zahira) as the very same restaurant revolved slowly
amid the snow-clad mountains. Of course, you can see clips of the film on
a 140 inch screen, in a huge octagonal movie theatre where the larger than
life hero comes alive.
Fortunately, I don't have to take the perilous James Bond route up the 3,000
m high Mt Schilthorn. I scale the peaks in four aerial cableways and the
thrilling trip takes only 32 minutes. It's a memorable one. We start at
the sleepy and picturesque Stechelberg, change cable cars at Gimmelwald,
an old mountain farming village, and go past Murren. (This little car-free
holiday resort has us really intrigued so we go back another day to check
out its Restaurant Taverne and Sportchalet.)
Today, the vivid blue of the clear and freezing blue sky kickstarts our
adrenalin as we glide past grassy green slopes. Every now and then we come
dangerously close and nose to nose with menacing rocks. The Trummelbach
Falls, the only glacier waterfalls inside a mountain, are just a short distance
away. At the height of 2,677 m we go past Birg and finally reach Schilthorn's
Piz Gloria.
Once there, I can only hold my breath in awe. What a sight! What a feeling!
From this one peak there is an uninterrupted 360o panorama of over 200 mountain
peaks. Switzerland doesn't come any more splendid than this. There's no
better place to pay homage to the majesty of the world-famous Eiger, Monch
and Jungfrau. The spectacular panorama stretches from Mt Titlis, along the
beautiful Bernese Alps to Mont Blanc in France across the lowlands to the
Black Forest in Germany.
The combination is heady: champagne and mountains and then this 3,000 m
high revolving restaurant, which is smoothly turning around powered by solar
energy. It's chilly on the large viewing terrace outside and mounds of snow
glisten on the edges. Inside the restaurant, my champagne and eggs breakfast
along with yeasty warm rolls warms me. And surprise of surprises-right here
on this James Bond mountain restaurant, the menu offers Madras lentils,
Jaipur vegetables, pickles, papad and basmati rice! I
couldn't figure out whether this was due to the popularity of Indian food
or because there were plenty of Indian tourists around here. I also couldn't
decide whether this was a good or a bad thing. Of course, the rest of the
menu is spartan and one doesn't go here for a culinary feast but for that
James Bond feeling!
Urs Von Allmen, manager, and Beatrice Dolder tell me the story behind the
revolving restaurant. It's as dramatic as James Bond himself. Various projects
to access Climber's Peak had come to nought since the 19th century. The
geology of the mountain didn't lend itself to the building of a railway
and necessitated an aerial cablecar. It was only in the early 1960s that
the Schilthorn summit was made accessible to the general public, by aerial
cableway. In 1967, work began on the revolving restaurant but soon the infant
Schilthorn company ran out of funds. And voila! James Bond made his dramatic
entry.
The British film company planning the next 007 spectacular, On Her Majesty's
Secret Service, had sent out a location scout. Ian Fleming's novel
called for a mountain-top location accessible only by private cablecar.
After searching all over, the film producers arrived in Murren to visit
the Schilthorn, met Ernst Feuz (the man behind it all) and an agreement
was reached within 24 hours. The film-makers finished the construction and
paid for it all from their film budget. They had exclusive rights to the
cable-way and the restaurant for three months to complete the filming. It
seems hard to believe that no money changed hands. It was a fair exchange
and no one involved ever regretted it. That's what James Bond is all about!
Right?
My head may be in the clouds (literally too) but what keeps me anchored
in my place are the hordes of visitors who pour in and out of the cablecars
which glide up and down the mountains. That infernal souvenir shop nudged
right next to the restaurant is yet another reminder of the fact that I
ain't no James Bond and this is no film. But I am determined to ignore these
and give in to the seduction of the early morning champagne and the heady
mountains. Vodka Martini anyone?
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