Sunday 22 February 2015

007 Travel story: Andermatt & Verzasca Dam (SWITZERLAND) 2014

In order to read our 007 Travel story of Switzerland from the day one, click here.


Saturday 19 July 2014

We had a breakfast in Hotel Jungfrau in Lauterbrunnen and then we took a train to Interlaken. Price without Swiss Pass would have been 10,40 CHF (8,51 EUR) / adult, 5,20 CHF (4,25 EUR) / child, total 26 CHF (21,27 EUR), but with Swiss Pass, price was only half of this, when we didn't use "the pass day". From train station we took a taxi to Hotel De La Paix.


The Annex building on the left




HotelHotel De La Paix
Address: Bernastrasse 24, Interlaken
Price: 220 CHF (181 €) / 1 night, breakfast included, reserved via booking.com
Wi-Fi: Free
Check in: 13.00 – 22.00
Check out: 07.00 – 11.00
Room type: Triple Room - Annex, with kitchen



Our triple room


Room´s kitchen


Hotel´s garden

We had our room in the Annex building, next to the main hotel. The room was not ready so early in the morning, so we just left our luggage to hotel´s lobby and moved on to Interlaken´s Europcar, (Address: Hoeheweg 37, Interlaken) where we rented a car Skoda Fabia with a navigator. The rent was 138,96 CHF (117,42 EUR), for the car (24 h) and 21,39 CHF (20,00 EUR) for the navigator.


Mika in front of Europcar Interlaken


Skoda Fabia





We drove partly the Goldfinger route, and the scenery was really amazing there high on the alpine roads.


Aston Martin DB5 and James Bond
Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC











We took photos of Hotel Aurora in Andermatt, (Address: Gotthardstrasse 163, Andermatt), where Bond (Sean Connery) leaves Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet) to gas station in Bond movie "Goldfinger" (1964). 










Bond leaves Tilly Masterson to gas station
Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC


We had also our lunch there in Restaurant Aelpli: Ham Omelette was 16,50 CHF (15,43 EUR), Nuggets 18,00 CHF (16,83 EUR) and Pork Escalope 22,00 CHF (20,57 EUR).



Restaurant Aelpli of Hotel Aurora



In Andermatt there is also Hotel Bergidyll, (Address: Gothardstrasse 39, Andermatt) where Sean Connery and the whole EON crew stayed during filming Andermatt scenes of "Goldfinger".







Connery's room was number 21. Unfortunately it was booked when we were in the hotel, so we visited only the hotel's lobby. Here is the photo of James Bond room in Hotel Bergidyll.


James Bond room
Photo: Hotel Bergidyll

We continued driving and visited our main destination for today, Verzasca Dam in the Locarno district of the Canton of Ticino, Switzerland, is famous for "GoldenEye" (1995), where 007 (Pierce Brosnan) makes his awesome bungee jump. In "GoldenEye" he is supposed to be in Arkangel, Soviet Union, but in reality the scene takes place in Verzasca Valley, quite near the Italian border.





Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC






Mika on Bond filming location





Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC





Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC


Verzasca Dam was also a filming place for a Roger Moore movie "Fire, Ice and Dynamite" (1990), which is directed by Willy Bogner, Jr, known for making stunt sequences for four 007 movies ("On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977), "For Your Eyes Only" (1981) and "A View to a Kill" (1985).


It was amazing to see these daredevils jumping like Bond from the height of 220 meters. In "GoldenEye", the jump was done by stuntman Wayne Michaels. The jump was voted the best movie stunt of all time in 2002 and set a world record for the highest bungee jump off a fixed structure (1995).












Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC

Enjoy the view!






Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC






VIDEO: Opening sequence of "GoldenEye" movie






There is also a nice souvenir shop close the dam and we bought some Bond related stuff, like a Verzasca dam clock and a bungee jump lighter.







When we started to travel back, thunderstorm surprised us and we decided to take a bit longer (but faster) road back to Interlaken.



Thunderstorm above us

With this choice we avoided curvy alpine roads, but we found Pilatus Aircraft factory in the city of Stans. This is the place where Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) had his gold factory in "Goldfinger".





Finally, late at night we came back to our hotel with take-out food and after that went straight to sleep. In the morning we had breakfast and continued our journey.









This 007 Travel story will continue. Next stop Montreux!

See more 007 Travel stories here



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