Lauterbrunnen

The water comes off the wall and turns to mist before it reaches the ground. On a windy day the fall is pushed sideways and never gets as far as the village roofs. A short gallery behind it opens from May to October and shuts once ice forms.

Nothing shows from outside: this one cuts through the inside of the rock. A lift carries you in and you come down by stairs and galleries, a stage at a time. The walls are wet and the rails slick. It melts off the glaciers above and runs hardest in summer.

A tunnel takes the line from the mountain flank up to the saddle between the peaks. Two changes from the valley, and the last stretch is dark rock, so the eye needs a moment. The fare is among the steepest of any mountain line here, so weather decides.

No car reaches this clifftop village; goods arrive on a cable. The lanes run narrow and the houses low, so the peaks opposite stay in sight. A race judged on time alone first ran here in 1922, and the downhill of 1928 still runs, a thousand entering a winter.

The summit restaurant turns once in 45 minutes, so the whole circle passes a seated diner. A Bond film was shot up here in 1969, and the building now carries the name from the script. A window table is surer if it is booked ahead.

A village on the opposite clifftop, reached only by train from the valley below. A downhill race comes in January on a course long enough that a run takes over two and a half minutes. In race week the valley trains fill from dawn, so give up on a seat.

One field on the valley floor is where people who step off the cliffs come down. On a summer afternoon a canopy cracks open every few minutes, and the jumper walks straight back up. Deaths have happened in this valley, so stay off the field itself.

A short loop on the ridge above Murren sets out the wild flowers species by species with labels beside them. They come together for only a few weeks after the snow goes, so June and July are when the labels earn their keep.

A level walk linking the feet of the falls, flat enough for a pram or a wheelchair. Water off the walls runs in ditches between the fields and keeps the verge cool through summer. End to end runs just past the hour, with bus stops along the way.

The road ends here and walls close in on three sides beyond it. Above the last houses, concrete avalanche barriers are set in rows across the slope, which tells you plainly what this place is in winter.

A tiny car-free farming village clinging to a ledge between Murren and Stechelberg. Farm doors have unmanned stalls with cheese and syrup and a tin for the money. It is a cable car halfway stop, and an easy walk down from Murren.

A climbing route from Murren to Gimmelwald, clipped to iron rungs and steel cable bolted into the cliff. A long suspension bridge and a single-wire crossing hang hundreds of metres above the valley. Murren sports shops rent the gear; the route is summer-only.

A cable car opposite Lauterbrunnen station climbs to Grutschalp, where a small narrow-gauge train runs along the cliff edge to Murren. Across the valley the Eiger and Jungfrau keep pace the whole way. Sit on the valley side to see them.

A clifftop village reached from Lauterbrunnen by post bus, through hairpins and a rock tunnel. At the far edge a small cable car rises to Sulwald, and forest paths continue toward the ridge above Murren. Tour groups seldom make it up, leaving it hushed.

Steel grating and glass floor bolted to the cliff below Birg, the midway stop for the Schilthorn. In one stretch you crawl through a mesh tube, hundreds of metres of air visible beneath you. The summit ticket covers it, so hop off going up or down.