Revolving Restaurant – The Piz Gloria

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Have you watched the 007 movie “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”? Well, I have watched it three times and to be exact – first in VHS, second in VCD and third in DVD. For sure I am not going to watch this Ian Fleming based movie when it comes available in blu ray discs because my mind had already absorbed much on the scoop of the film. Now that I have few all-original and un-retouched photos of Piz Gloria, the building that sets on the top of the mountain portraying the villain’s hideout, I don’t think I will watch the film ever again. I could not describe much about Piz Gloria except that the photos clearly speak of its remarkable view beyond what an individual can express. Watching from the revolving restaurant the breathtaking scenery of the mountain ranges and snow covered mountain summits is indeed a significant chance of a lifetime encounter with nature in the Alps.

The main reason why I kept watching this movie whenever there is new possible way for this 1969 James Bond film to be seen in a much clearer and crisper picture quality was the Piz Gloria, a revolving restaurant overlooking from the top of the world. Though the Piz Gloria was notably shown for the most part in the movie, still I am not contented on what I’ve seen. I crave for something more realistic presentation of the Piz Gloria without any cinematic effect but purely what our naked eyes could actually see. Three days ago all my pushy hankering about the Piz Gloria came to an end when May, my very good and one of my most trusted friends came to the rescue. She emailed to me few photos of the Piz Gloria which was taken very recently during a family vacation to the Alps. May is the lady you see in the photo in white summer attire (I don’t really know how to call it…is it a dress or a blouse?....LOL….) with a toddler walking in front. Actually, the child is her adorable daughter, Diana. It looks like Diana was in trouble with her pink shades. I can tell from here when I zoomed in the photo. Or maybe, Diana has her own creativity in wearing her shades….LOL…

More on Piz Gloria (extracted from Wikipedia):
Piz Gloria is the name of the revolving restaurant on the Schilthorn near Mürren in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland. The cable car station and the restaurant were built by the Bernese architect, Konrad Wolf. The Piz Gloria restaurant claims to be the world's first revolving restaurant, although others already existed, such as the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., which opened during the Century 21 Exposition of the 1962 World's Fair in that country.
Given the difficult topographic and climatic conditions, construction units were prefabricated. The outer skin of the glass circular upper floor is of aluminium-skinned wooden panels, that originally was an aluminum-coated tent roof. The rotative mechanism — a 12m-diameter core with a 3.0m annulus completely rotates the upper floor in approximately an hour — allows every guest to have a view. The Piz Gloria panoramic restaurant is a pioneer architectural achievement in tourist buildings, bearing witness to the spirit of the 1960s. In 1990, the restaurant was enlarged to accommodate some 400 diners, and retained its original architectural character.
The Piz Gloria restaurant originated in the Ian Fleming James Bond novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963), wherein the hideout of the villain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, is Piz Gloria, a mountain-top building containing an allergies investigation clinic. The movie production team found the restaurant partly constructed, and financially contributed to its completion in return for exclusive use for filming the eponymous movie (1969), where the building is shown quite prominently. Afterwards, the restaurant retained the Piz Gloria name of the film location, and currently acknowledges its significant contribution to its commercial reputation; it features a James Bond exhibition (memorabilia and film clips) in the lower floor.
Moreover, the world's highest, revolving restaurant is the Metro-Alpin restaurant at 3,500m (11,483ft.) at the top of the Saas-Fee lift system. The Piz Gloria atop of the Schilthorn over Mürren is 2,970m (9,744ft.); Switzerland has a newer, third revolving restaurant, the Le Kuklos, above Leysin in canton Vaud.