Piz Gloria

Where it sits. Piz Gloria is the revolving restaurant on the summit of the Schilthorn, at 2,970 metres in the Bernese Alps, directly above the car-free village of Mürren on the western wall of the Lauterbrunnen valley in the canton of Berne. The building is a low concrete drum with a continuous band of glazing, a helicopter pad on one side and a terrace on the other, and it is reached only by cable car — there is no road, no railway and no easy walking route to the door. Its position matters more than its architecture: it faces east across the valley at the Eiger, the Mönch and the Jungfrau, far enough back to see all three as separate mountains, and its sightlines run from Mont Blanc to the Jura.

The story behind it. The name is an invention. The Schilthornbahn was completed in stages between 1961 and 1967, and by 1968 the summit station stood half-finished with the operating company out of money. Eon Productions, scouting for a mountain-top lair, made a deal: the production would contribute to completing the building — including the revolving floor and the helipad — in return for exclusive use of it as a film set. The screenplay called the place Piz Gloria, a fabricated Romansh-sounding name for a peak that had never carried one, and when filming ended the operators simply kept it. The restaurant has revolved ever since, completing a full turn in roughly 45 minutes on a ring of rollers, so a two-course meal delivers the entire horizon without anyone getting up. It is one of the earliest revolving restaurants built at high altitude anywhere, and among the very few funded, in part, by a film studio.

On screen. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) the building is Blofeld's Institut für physiologische Forschung, an allergy-research clinic where Ernst Stavro Blofeld, played by Telly Savalas, conditions a group of young women to distribute a biological agent. Bond, played by George Lazenby in his only appearance in the role, gains entry impersonating the College of Arms genealogist Sir Hilary Bray. The film uses the real building throughout: the circular dining room, the terrace, the helipad and the cable-car station are all as built, and the interior sets constructed at Pinewood were designed to match. Bond escapes on skis down the mountain's north-east flank at night, and the film returns for the closing helicopter assault, in which the institute is stormed and largely destroyed on screen. Related sequences moved to the valley floor at Lauterbrunnen for the stock-car chase and the ice rink. The film's association with the summit is now permanent and openly commercial, and the restaurant leans into it without embarrassment.

What you actually see today. The summit complex has three parts. The restaurant occupies the revolving upper level, serving a menu that includes a James Bond breakfast and, inevitably, a vodka martini list. Below it is Bond World 007, an interactive exhibition opened in 2013 with production material, a helicopter flight simulator, a bobsleigh seat rigged to film plates, and a room recreating Blofeld's office; a 007 Walk of Fame runs along the terrace with plaques for cast and crew. Outside is the Skyline glass viewing platform and, one station down at Birg, the Thrill Walk, a cliff-hugging walkway about 200 metres long with a glass floor, a wire-mesh crawl tunnel and a rope bridge over a very long drop. Filming locations are signposted on the terrace so you can line up the shots against the real skyline. The rotation is slow enough that most people notice it only when they look back at a window and find a different mountain in it, and there is a fixed outer ring of floor around the turning section, which is worth knowing if you leave a coat on a chair. The summit also keeps a small self-service level for anyone who wants the view without the table service.

Getting there and timing. From Interlaken Ost take the train to Lauterbrunnen, then either the funicular to Grütschalp and the narrow-gauge railway to Mürren, or the postbus to Stechelberg and the cableway from there; from Mürren the line continues via Birg to the summit. Reckon on 90 minutes each way from Interlaken and a substantial fare, reduced by the Swiss Travel Pass, the Half Fare Card and early-morning first-ascent tickets. The restaurant and exhibition open year-round, weather permitting. June to September gives the clearest hiking-season views; January to March pairs the visit with skiing on the Mürren–Schilthorn slopes. Check the summit webcam before you buy a ticket, because low cloud sits on this ridge frequently and there is nothing at all to see from inside it. Dress for 15 to 20 degrees colder than the valley floor, and allow for thinner air — the step from the cable car to the terrace is at nearly 3,000 metres.