Bungee jumping extreme with James Bond

The huge 220m high Verzasca ‘James Bond dam’ in Switzerland

Do you remember the opening scene in the James Bond film Goldeneye? Our 007 hero (played at the time by Pierce Brosnan) makes a rather sharp exit by bungee jumping off the edge of a very tall, mysterious-looking dam before whizzing off on a motorbike to catch a runaway plane in mid-flight. Like you do.

Well, we were on holiday in Locarno (that’s the Swiss part of Lake Maggiore, geography fans) and we discovered the James Bond dam! It’s actually called the Contra dam in the Verzasca valley and is a whopping 220m high. Ever since the James Bond film, the dam has been used once a month as a bungee jumping venue and we were there to see the jumping action!

Despite the fog, rain, mist and cold temperatures, there were plenty of takers to throw themselves off this dam. At 220m the jump is the highest single rope bungee jump in the world and of course, if it’s good enough for our fave secret agent, then it’s good enough for us!

However, when the nice man running the show sauntered over to us and asked us if we wanted to jump, we blurted out that we preferred to write about these sort of things that involve big heights, rather than actually do them! It really was amazing to see though.

If you fancy a slightly less soggy and extreme bungee jump, then we’ve got a good range of venues in the UK on the Into the Blue website – you can even do an indoor bungee jump so weather won’t stop play at all!

In case you haven’t seen the film, here’s a clip of that famous bungee jump opening scene from Goldeneye