- Yellow Productions presents a travel guide
for the Schilthorn in Switzerland.
I'm 007 Chris and I'm 008 Topher.
And today we're gonna tell ya everything you need to know,
to visit this attraction for great views in Switzerland.
In this video I'll tell you everything
you need to know to visit the Schilthorn.
Including, how to get up here,
taking the train to the cable car,
We'll explore the town of Murren a little bit,
which is kinda right in the middle of the journey.
At the top of the Schilthorn
we'll walk through the Piz Gloria,
It's a neat rotating restaurant.
Talk about some of the James Bond memrobilia
and history that's up at this peak.
And finally on our way down we'll hike to Gimmelwald,
which if you're familiar with Rick Steves
and his Europe travel guides, he says Gimmelwald
is his favorite town in all of Switzerland.
But before all that let me tell you
a little bit more about what's at the top
and then we'll go down to the bottom.
So once you take the cable car all the way to the top,
you will come into that building, about two floors down.
Take the escalator to the top,
and you get up here to this observatory.
I'll talk about the stuff inside in a moment,
but really what I think what you're here for
is the magnificent alpine view.
There's this observatory that I'm standing on,
but then if you walk out this way and look over here,
you can see that there's another viewpoint out there.
Further out, assuming that you're willing
to walk on the slippery snow.
I guess it depends what time of year there's snow or not,
but there's still snow up here on May 28th.
Okay, so let's talk about how to get to the Schilthorn.
I'm gonna start the journey in this video at Lauterbrunnen.
It is the town you see in the valley
down below in this shot.
It's already in the mountains at an elevation of 800 meters.
You can get here from Interlaken,
the major train station in the area,
via direct train to Lauterbrunnen.
At Lauterbrunnen you're gonna catch the cable car.
It leaves every 15 to 30 minutes,
depending upon how busy it is,
and the total ride to the top takes three minutes.
For the most scenic shots hang out
on the side of the cable car looking into the valley.
It is pretty awesome.
After three minutes you'll be rewarded
with a pretty commanding view of the valley
and the you'll arrive at Grutschalp, the transfer station.
By the way, I'm sure my Swiss-German pronunciation
is awful, but leave that aside.
Anyway, from here you run off the cable car
and you get onto a train which,
will be waiting for you right here.
This train is another really scenic ride as well.
Sit on the left side for the most commanding views.
It'll make a quick stop in Winteregg,
which is an awesome name for a town,
and finally after 15 minutes we'll arrive here
in this really quaint train station.
The train will drop you off in Murren,
and from Murren you walk about 10 minutes through the town,
to get to the actual cable car.
It's pretty hard to get lost in Murren.
There's basically two major roads,
the left one or the right one, either way,
10 minute walking will get you to the Schilthornbann.
But let's go ahead and explore Murren a little bit
before we take that next cable car ride up.
Like a lot of these towns around here,
Murren has a light up sign board,
that'll tell you the status of the skiing trails
and also the hiking trails.
So you can hike your way back to that cable car,
to go down to Lauterbrunnen as well.
And if you're curious how long any of those hikes take,
you can find these yellow sign boards,
all these towns around here have them,
and they'll tell you in hours and minutes
how long the various hikes take to the neighboring towns.
If all that cable car, training
and walking has gotten you thirsty,
or it's the high elevations you walk in Murren,
there's one of these convenient Swiss water fountains
and if you got a bottle of water just fill it up right here.
This is like chilled Evian water.
I mean, it's mountain spring water and it's cold.
And it's delicious.
Everything in Switzerland is expensive,
so think abour every time you drink one of these,
it's actually free, so that's about
three Swiss francs you're saving right there.
See you up on the hill.
One of the cool things about walking around here,
is you see cows in interesting places.
These cows are on the edge of this precipice
right below a lunch restaurant.
After you've done exploring Murren and admiring the cows,
it's time to head up to the cable car up to the Schilthorn
and this is the main one, it makes a stop in Birg,
it's about 13 minutes from Murren to Birg.
It goes every 30 minutes, it's a large cable car.
The best views on this one I think,
are up at the top towards the front,
because it's neat to see the transition
between the green grass around Murren, to what looks brown
and then eventually to snow.
When you arrive in Birg it's an elevation
of about 2600 meters or 8800 feet.
Once you get off the cable car at Birg,
at an elevation of 2677 meters, there's the Bistro Birg.
On a nice warm day you can get some hot dogs
or hamburgers and have a meal out here in the sun.
There's also the thrill walk, which is a walkway
just down there, that will seize the moment.
And from here you can also see
the Schilthorn all the way to the top.
To get down to the thrill walk
from the bistro platform there's a metal staircase.
If you walk down this metal staircase,
and you go down this meatal staircase some more
and then you take a look this way,
you can see people who are high above the valley floor.
It's a long way down.
The thrill walk is included
in your admission to the cable car,
so definitely do check it out.
It can get kinda windy around here, there's a photo point,
they tell you where to take good pictures.
But I will say wow, this is probably
the thrillingest part of the walk, right here.
It's the part where you walk on a little cable.
So if you've ever wanted to be a tightrope artist,
you can do it right here.
And if we look down, it's probably hard to really
tell on video how far down that is.
But it is a long way down to the bottom.
The thrill walk continues with more thrills.
It turns into a glass walkway, so if you look down ...
It's too thrilling, I don't know if I can walk anymore,
I have to turn it into a thrill crawl.
But if you look down then you can see my knees,
which I'm on, and a long way down.
Walking down this thrill walk, I must say,
this is an impressive piece of Swiss engineering.
Because, this whole thing is basically,
sheared in to the mountain cliff.
I will let you know it's a one way walk.
So you gotta walk one way and then you gotta walk back.
And then from right underneath here, if you time it right,
you can actually see the cable cars
going up above you on this walk.
So apparently I started crawling too early.
There's this section, this wire tunnel,
that you have to crawl through to get to the other side.
You wanna see me do it?
No, I got this microphone,
and it's to small, so I'm going back.
The thrill walk ends right here after the tunnel,
where in May there's still snow.
All right, we gotta catch the next car, see ya.
After you've finished the thrill walk,
you'll transfer to the next cable car,
to go all the way to the top.
This next cable car takes five minutes to get to the top.
It fits a hundred people in here,
and you can see the famous Piz Gloria restaurant
right there in the distance.
To enjoy a very unique meal, or should I say,
a meal with a very unique view,
come up to the Piz Gloria 360 degree, rotating restaurant.
It rotates once an hour and while you're sitting here,
you can enjoy some spectacular views of the scenery.
I ordered the 007 burger,
this whole place is James Bond themed.
It's 23 francs and it tasted kind of like
what I would expect a burger in Switzerland to taste.
Burgers are kinda an American food,
so say what you will about a Swiss burger.
I think the cheese was Swiss cheese though.
The Coke tastes as much as you'd expect Coca Cola to taste.
One thing I will say, in this rotating restaurant,
if you leave to go to the bathroom,
make sure you remembered where you're sitting,
because your seat will actually be in a different place
when you come back from the bathroom.
This place is James Bond themed,
because the 007 movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service,
was filmed right in this restaurant,
and this backdrop was featured in the movie.
It's original, from the time of the movie.
You can see Bond right here,
in what they called the Alpine Room.
Just one floor below the Piz Gloria restaurant
is the Skyline take away.
You can get some cheaper fare here like sandwiches,
or muffins and sit out on one of these tables
and enjoy the same view, just one that doesn't rotate.
Around the other side from the snack shop,
is the Skyline Top Shop, souvenirs and more.
Just one floor below the snack shop they've got rest rooms,
that are yes, James Bond themed.
Men goes in Bonds,
Women goes in Bond girls.
And just beyond the restrooms is Bond World.
A James Bond inspired museum, and you walk in
through a very interesting curtain,
where Bond shoots at you.
(gunshot)
Bond is interesting if you've got a little bit
of time to kill before your next cable car ride down.
I'm not sure that in and by itself,
it's a big attraction though.
The cable cars depart every 30 minutes,
and they have got countdown timers all around the building,
counting down to the next cable car departure.
When you're all done then it's time,
to take the cable car back down.
Join the mob of people and get in line.
The final thing I wanna say though,
make sure you bring sun screen.
You see I have a lot of color in my face?
It's because my face got a lot of sun,
yesterday at the Jungfrau.
High elevations, lots of snow, equals easy sun burn.
When you're done with the mountain peak,
if you wanna get some exercise on your way down,
you can take the cable car down to Murren
and then walk from Murren down to Gimmelwald.
And on your way, if you like cows you will like this walk.
Because, in the summer the farmers
bring there cows up here to graze, and if you're wondering
where all the bells are coming from, it's from the cows.
All of the cows have this really big bell on their neck
and I think it's just pretty cool.
It reminds me a little bit of Buddhist chanting music.
They could just put a temple right here,
then they wouldn't need to play their bell music.
They could just have the natural music by the cows.
(cow bells ringing)
And in addition to cows on the way down to Gimmelwald,
you will also find mountain sheep, are they mountain sheep?
Well I'm not sure, but they're sheep on a mountain,
which thereby makes them mountain sheep.
The path from Gimmelwald to Murren is mostly paved,
although eventually you will turn
onto this little gravel path the last five or 10 minutes.
You won't get too lost because,
if you just keep paying attention
to where the cable car goes and follow the cable car line,
then you'll get down to the Gimmelwald cable car stop.
You'll get to the center of Gimmelwald,
when you get to this sign, this is their town square.
It'll let you know if you walked back uphill to Murren,
that takes about 55 minutes,
or it's just two minutes that way to the cable car.
Or you can walk a whole bunch of other places that way.
If you make it all the way down to Gimmelwald,
you might see some of those cow bells
hung decoratively on some of the houses.
Those are some big cow bells.
When you make it down to Gimmelwald,
walk around a little bit.
Here you can get up close and personal to some cows,
and as one of my colleagues said,
they do look pretty handsome.
And your final stop if you're trying
to get back to civilization,
is the Gimmelwald cable car stop, right here.
A tiny little one.
At the Gimmelwald station, both cable cars,
up and down arrive simultaneously.
So if you're going all the way down,
make sure you're going the right way,
because you'll have two cars to pick from.
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All right, bye-bye.