A Sad Sight: One of the World's Most Famous Hotels Permanently Closed

(Patria) - On one of the picturesque serpentine roads climbing towards the Furka Pass, an Alpine pass in southern Switzerland, at an altitude of 2,300 metres, one of the once most famous Swiss hotels - Belvédère - is nestled.

This hotel was often called the glacier hotel because one could literally step from its entrance onto the Rhone Glacier.

The road over the Furka Pass is one of the most recognisable and most exciting Swiss mountain roads. It is located near the Swiss-Italian border, roughly halfway between Milan and Zurich.

The road and the hotel even had a cameo role in the 1964 James Bond film "Goldfinger", when the iconic Aston Martin DB5 and Ford Mustang "raced" along it, and one of the curves, as a reminder of that, was named - James Bond Strasse.

The Hotel Belvédère was built in 1882 by the Seiler hotelier family, and wealthy guests would spend entire summers there, so the hotel was already expanded in 1907, increasing its capacity to 90 beds.

Nowhere else in the world could one get so close to a glacier and, on top of that, spend the night in comfortable rooms with a fantastic view of the river of ice descending deep into the valley.

With the opening of two railway lines - the Furka Oberalp and the Glacier Express - the number of tourists increased, and after World War II, even more people could afford a car, and thus a stay at the Hotel Belvédère.

But in the 1960s, and especially after 1970, the number of guests began to decline. Ever faster cars could cover what was once a two- or three-day drive through the Furka Pass in half a day, reducing the need for overnight stays.

With changing times came different tourists, and until recently, during the season, the hotel restaurant and its terrace with an incredible view were a very lively place.

The hotel is permanently closed, and this was contributed to by the truly terrible fact that it lost its main attraction.

Namely, the 11,000-year-old Rhone Glacier has retreated so much in the last hundred years that it can no longer even be seen from the hotel.

It has shortened by more than 1,300 metres, and its fate was shared by other attractions of the Furka Pass, primarily the natural ice cave at the glacier's mouth, which retreated from the valley along with it.

Another cave, near the Hotel Belvédère, which has existed since 1894, is carved into one of the purest parts of the Rhone Glacier and extends about 100 metres in length, turning sunlight into a bluish, almost otherworldly experience.

Due to the movement of the glacier, the cave must be re-dug every year, reports Punkufer.hr.

With the glacier visibly retreating and melting, maintenance is becoming increasingly difficult, and tourists are increasingly reluctant to pay for an entrance ticket, fearing for their own safety.

On the other hand, the ice in the cave must be maintained artificially, which is noticeable, so the experience is no longer what it used to be.

Belvédère was closed in 2016 and today stands sadly on its bend, with boards nailed over the windows, as if squinting.

One of the first Swiss victims of climate change, due to its photogenicity, still enjoys great popularity in the virtual world and is an unavoidable photo spot on the ascent to the Furka Pass.