My Mission to James Bond Mountain: HUGH GORDON climbs aboard trains and funiculars to soak up the views from Murren, the car-free Swiss village made famous by 007

Hugh says that in Murren the hills are "alive with the sound of cowbells and the smell of wild thyme". He went to the mountain restaurant Piz Gloria, where On Her Majesty's Secret Service was filmed READ MORE: Tourist beaches set to shrink the most by 2100 due to climate change 32 BST, 24 July 2023
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Sneakily, the genre comedians who plague Channel 4 schedules have an insult to most of the good things in life . For example, Switzerland, according to Ian Smith, is a "hilly country full of banks where old people can legally go and commit suicide".
How charming! Considering Switzerland consistently tops lists of the best countries in the world, perhaps the comic - who was born in Goole in Humberside - is just jealous.
The country isn't all chocolate, cheese and trains running on time anyway. In fact, although the trains run on time, connections can be as complicated as traveling between Aberdeen and Penzance.
My trip from Zurich airport to the alpine village of Murren involved three trains - and timetables show there can sometimes be six.
But once in the pure air of the Jungfrau region, all transport worries can be forgotten. Murren, like the Croatian island of Lopud, Herm in the Channel Islands and Venice, is one of the few areas in the world to be car-free - by choice, unlike Londoners whose Mayor Sadiq Khan is imposing a Net Zero plan for the British capital - and it also has a magnificent funicular.

Travel Jul 24, 2023 0 32 Add to Reading List

My Mission to James Bond Mountain: HUGH GORDON climbs aboard trains and funiculars to soak up the views from Murren, the car-free Swiss village made famous by 007

Hugh says that in Murren the hills are "alive with the sound of cowbells and the smell of wild thyme". He went to the mountain restaurant Piz Gloria, where On Her Majesty's Secret Service was filmed READ MORE: Tourist beaches set to shrink the most by 2100 due to climate change 32 BST, 24 July 2023

Sneakily, the genre comedians who plague Channel 4 schedules have an insult to most of the good things in life . For example, Switzerland, according to Ian Smith, is a "hilly country full of banks where old people can legally go and commit suicide".

How charming! Considering Switzerland consistently tops lists of the best countries in the world, perhaps the comic - who was born in Goole in Humberside - is just jealous.

The country isn't all chocolate, cheese and trains running on time anyway. In fact, although the trains run on time, connections can be as complicated as traveling between Aberdeen and Penzance.

My trip from Zurich airport to the alpine village of Murren involved three trains - and timetables show there can sometimes be six.

But once in the pure air of the Jungfrau region, all transport worries can be forgotten. Murren, like the Croatian island of Lopud, Herm in the Channel Islands and Venice, is one of the few areas in the world to be car-free - by choice, unlike Londoners whose Mayor Sadiq Khan is imposing a Net Zero plan for the British capital - and it also has a magnificent funicular.