Schilthorn & Piz Gloria from Interlaken

The revolving restaurant on the Schilthorn was half-built and out of money in 1968 when a film production offered to finish it in exchange for using it as a villain's mountain lair. The producers paid for the summit station and the helipad; the building kept the name they gave it. Piz Gloria has been turning ever since, one full rotation every 45 minutes. Getting there is most of the pleasure. The cable car climbs in four stages out of the Lauterbrunnen valley, through Gimmelwald - a hamlet of a hundred and thirty people with no road to it - and Murren, which has no cars at all and sits on a shelf directly opposite the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. At Birg, the second-to-last station, the Thrill Walk runs a steel and glass walkway along the outside of the cliff face, including a section of open mesh and a tunnel you crawl through if you want to. The summit at 2,970 metres looks across to the three peaks and, on a clear day, as far as Mont Blanc and the Black Forest. Unlike most high Alpine products this one runs all year and is at its best in winter, when the valley cloud sits below you.