This was our final day at Interlaken. We were to take a train to Lucern for the next part of our trip. When we checked the timetable, we realized Interlaken Ost to Lucern is about a two-hour journey. Since the journey was not long, it gave us a window of creating a half-day visit before taking a train to Lucern. For a half-day visit. Schilthron mountain, famous for shooting of the James Bond movie, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", which was shot there in 1969 was the best place.
Since we had to travel to Lucern post Lunch, we packed everything, settled with B & B owner, and then started our trip. Leaving our B & B at about 8 am, through our usual bus to Interlaken Ost, we made it to Ost by about 0830.
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| Scenary on the way |
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| A Waterfall at the Ropeway Station
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Getting to Schilthron Mountain Peak is actually easy but looks difficult if looked at the stops. If one looks at the map, it shows 5 changes to reach the peak, starting from Interlaken Ost station. But careful examination tells us, it is after all not all that difficult. Actually, this is what takes you to the peak -
(a) Train from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen - 20 minutes run.
(b) Bus from Lauterbrunnen to Schilthronbahn (Schilthron Cable Car Station) -12 minutes.
(c) Cable car from Schilthronbhan to Gimmelwald - 4 minutes.
(d) Cable Car from Gimmelwald to Murren - 5 minutes.
(e) Murren to Birg Cable Car - Long time of 12 minutes.😀😀
(f) and finally Birg to Schilthron Cable Car - 4 minutes.
It is worth mentioning that all these cable car connections are well meshed, you get down from one, just across there is the next cable car. That means not much wastage of time between connections. The whole trip one way takes about one hour or so.
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| Views from Rope Way - I |
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| Views from Rope Way - II |
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| Ropeway Station |
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| Birg, the Third Station |
Another important thing worth the mention is, Gimmelwald, Murren and Birg are also places where people get down to enjoy the scenery. Most of these places also have options to stay overnight or longer.
Since we did not know that there are four stages of cable cars. We thought just get into the cable car and zoom it takes one to the top. That created an interesting conversation at Shilthore Bhan when I was getting tickets. The booking counter lady asked me, "How high you want to go" and I was wondering, what kind of question that is. Anyway, I told her all the way to the Top. She tells me, "It is very high" and my answer was, so be it.
Her questions surprised me till our first cable car reached Gimmelwald and then it dawned on me that she actually meant "up to which stage you want to go". With a Swiss rail pass, this travel was complimentary hence we did not have to think about where to go except for going all the way up to the Top.
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| And the First look of Snow capped Mountains |
At this peak, there is a restaurant, "Piz Gloria". It is a beautiful revolving restaurant which was depicted as the office of the villain of "The Her Majesty's Secret Service" movie. At Schilthron, everything revolves around this movie. There is a James Bond museum depicting the props and scenes of this movie. The gent's toilet has themes based on the beauties of Bond movie and Ladies toilet has James Band featuring on walls and fittings.
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| Final Stop - Schilthorn - Piz Gloria |
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| In The Piz Gloria Revolving Restaurant |
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| Wow Weather |
This peak and around it is snow-clad. There is only a white sheet all around you. On one of the rooftop, there are few JB cutouts for you to pose with him. The restaurant also is fun because while you eat and drink, you get a 360-degree panoramic view of the peaks around this place. If one is lucky, it may snow (it did when we were there) and one can enjoy snowfall by stepping outside this place.
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Snowing
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Have fun at Piz Gloria and the terraces around it. Click selfies with James Bond and his famous beauties. If luck is on your side or if you are there in winter, the terraces will also be full of snow. Soak in the beauty of the place. The fun we had is coming up in photos.
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| Outside Piz Gloria |
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| My Female James Bond posing with the real one |
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| Having fun with Bond |
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| What are you saying? |
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| The Lead Actress |
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| Me too James! |
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| Entry to Ladies Rest Room |
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| And to Gents Rest Room |
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| Killer Looks |
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| With Bond |
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| Want to Shoot the Title Song? |
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| Bond .. Bond .. Bond |
Once we were done with the visit to the Schilthorn peak, we got down one-stop below, Birg where there is a glass walk awaiting you. It is fun to take this glass walk and enjoy the beauty from this point.
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| Going down to Glass Walk |
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| Glass Walk |
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| Thrilling but Scary |
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| On the Glass Walk |
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| Beautiful View |
After spending some time at Birg, we went straight to the bus station and taking a bus and a train combination, returned to Interlaken.
Since our luggage was already packed, we bid goodbye to this beautiful B & B, took our luggage, and taking our usual bus reached Interlaken. We were going from here to Lucern by regular train. These trains between these two destinations travel on the same route as the famous "Golden Pass Express", a train designed specifically for better viewing of the scenery. We took a journey of about one hour and thirty minutes to reach Lucern. The views on this route were fabulous and are posted below for you to see.
FInishing this journey we reached the beautiful station of Lucern. Taking a local train from here we reached our local station after a 5 minutes trip. Soon we were at our B & B in a peaceful neighborhood in a small suburb of Lucern, away from the crowd yet just 5 min away from central Lucern by a train.
We spent four and half days and found that these many days are grossly inadequate to visit Interlaken, there is so much to do, Paragliding, trekking, climbing the hills but our schedule has been on for the last 24 days and we had to keep up with our plan. Hence we could not undertake many activities at Interlaken. May be next time.
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