007 Travel story: Lauterbrunnen & Mürren (SWITZERLAND) 2015

In order to read our 007 travel story from day one, click here. 



Friday 31 July 2015

After our breakfast in Andermatt, we checked out and it was time to drive directly to Lauterbrunnen. 007 Travelers (Pirita, Mika and Little Agent Traveler) on the road again!

What could be better start for the day than getting a fine from Swiss police :)
Actually we didn't notice that we were speeding (4km / hour!) until we got this fine posted to home several months later... We must be now most wanted criminals in Switzerland :) 

 

Traveling by car

From: Andermatt, Switzerland
To: Lauterbrunnen and Mürren, Switzerland
Road tax: 40,00 EUR 

We arrived in Lauterbrunnen in the morning. Such a beautiful place, which we have visited also in 2014.

Village church of Lauterbrunnen can be seen briefly in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969).

Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC

Lauterbrunnen is a village and a municipality in the Interlaken-Oberhasli administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. The municipality comprises the major Lauterbrunnen Valley (German: Lauterbrunnental), the Soustal, the Sefinental, the upper Lauterbrunnen Valley with Untersteinberg including several glaciers, such as the Tschingelfirn and the Rottalgletscher, many Alpine meadows and peaks, such as Schilthorn, Bietenhorn, Schwarzmönch, and Silberhorn, and finally the villages Lauterbrunnen, Wengen, Mürren, Gimmelwald, Stechelberg, and Isenfluh, and several hamlets. The population of the village Lauterbrunnen is less than that of Wengen, but larger than that of the others.




The first thing to do was that we visited Mrs. Zwahlen, who is a former hotel owner of Hotel Jungfrau Lauterbrunnen. It was a happy reunion for us and for her. She is always so nice and a wonderful person. We met her also earlier in 2014 when we interviewed her. See her interview here.



After that, we met our dear friends Mr. Benjamin Lind (The Bond Bulletin, Eye on Bond), Mr. Wolfgang Thürauf (The Vice President of James Bond Club Deutschland) and composer Mr. Yannic Zenhäusern. We had such a nice time with them when we had lunch in the restaurant of Hotel Jungfrau Lauterbrunnen, which has a Bond connection: Hotel can be seen shortly in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), when Bond is calling London from telephone booth and Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat) and her henchmen try to shoot Bond. George Lazenby also dined here while filming "OHMSS". 007 Travelers have stayed in this hotel in 2014. See the hotel introduction here.

Wolfgang, Yannick & Benjamin

Ilse Steppat (Irma Bunt)
Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC

Did you know: German actress Ilse Steppat who played Irma Bunt got a heart attack and died just four days after the international release of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969). Movie was also her only English language role.












After the lunch it was time to move towards Mürren, which is quite near Lauterbrunnen.

Mürren

Mürren is a traditional Walser mountain village in Bernese Oberland, Switzerland, at an elevation of 1,650 m (5,413 ft.) above sea level and unreachable by public road. Tourism is popular through the summer and winter; the village features a view of the three towering mountains: Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau. Mürren has a population of just 450, but has 2,000 hotel beds. Mürren has its own school and two churches, one Reformed and one Roman Catholic.

We parked our car at the parking area in Stechelberg, since Mürren is a car-free area.

Earlier we had an invitation to the VIP opening of 007 Walk of Fame and now we received our VIP passes and we traveled by a cable car up to Mürren. 





There we went to Hotel Alpenruh, there we have stayed also earlier in 2014. See our earlier introduction of Hotel Alpenruh here! It was a great pleasure to meet again our host Urs Brotschi and his wife Melanie. See the interview (2014) of Urs here.



Accommodation

Hotel: Hotel Alpenruh ***
Address: Hinter der Egg, CH-3825 Mürren, Switzerland
Booked: Via Hotel Alpenruh
Price: Contact the hotel: alpenruh@schilthorn.ch
City tax: 0,00 EUR / person / night
Breakfast: Included
Wi-Fi: Free
Parking: Mürren is car free and the car park is at Stechelberg cable car station
Attention: Parking fees of Schilthorn Cableway Carpark, Stechelberg here, a single ticket to cable car 11,00 CHF /adult (Stechelberg - Mürren)
Check-in: 14.00 - 21.00
Check-out: 8.00 - 11.00
Room type: Triple room

HOW TO GET THERE
Take a train from Interlaken Ost for Lauterbrunnen, from where a postbus takes you to the bottom station of the Schilthorn aerial cableway in Stechelberg. The aerial cableway to Mürren departs every 30 minutes. Hotel Alpenruh is next to Mürren cableway station.

We got room number 17, it was really nice! 

In our hotel we changed our clothes for the evening, the dress code was: "James Bond casual - sporty & elegant"

007 Travelers family
Photo credit: Schilthornbahn AG, Markus Födisch
(alle Rechte vorbehalten/all rights reserved)

We met Anu Anttila, who is a Founder and Owner of the company Adamella, partners example with Ferretti Tourism Marketing and Jungfrau Region. Anu was also the only Finnish person there besides us.

Anu Anttila / Adamella & Pirita / 007 Travelers

Little Agent Traveler & Mika / 007 Travelers

We met more many good Bond friends, such as Mr. Morten Steingrimsen from Norway. He is the editor and founder of James Bond-Magasinet (“The Norwegian James Bond Magazine”).

Morten Steingrimsen

During the evening we experienced many wonderful things:

Opening speech and action packed opening of the event was in Stechelberg station, drinks and other beverages were available in Birg station and up in Piz Gloria, two helicopters flew over Piz Gloria with big bang and then landed with stars on board, people chatting with the stars and then they put their hands to vax mold, opening of 007 Walk of Fame. Later in the evening there was a wonderful dinner event with stars and beautiful fireworks show.

We had a nice chat with Mr. Bond, George Lazenby.

Little Agent Traveler & Pirita / 007 Travelers
& James Bond George Lazenby

It was also a great pleasure meeting Annelis Stähli - von Allmen again. She has run Hotel Eiger, which is a Bond related hotel. You can read her interview made in 2014 here.

Read our report of this VIP event here. Lots of Bond star pics including a video!



Saturday 1 August 2015

We had breakfast in Mürren and saw Michael Hackl (007Collector.com), then checked out and it was time to say goodbye for now to our friends and contacts.

On our way we saw this great 007 shop!

We noticed also that there is also bar with the shop!

Also stay tuned for our next 007 Travel story: Lake Maggiore.