“The Spy Who Loved Me” is all about the Mediterranean Sea: Bond travels by train through Egypt and goes diving in Sardinia. We list the real locations here.

In The Spy Who Loved Me James Bond (Roger Moore) teams up with Russian agent Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) – and visits some beautiful spots along the Mediterranean Sea. These are the locations:

CANADA & SWITZERLAND

The ski stunt at Mount Asgard

The opening ski stunt is supposed to be at “Berngarten” in Austria – but had been filmed at Piz Bernina in Switzerland. When Bond heads for the cliff though, a huge table mountain is revealed. That is Asgard Peak, part of a mountain range named after norse gods and places in Canada. Asgard Peak is situated in Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island up in the Artic.

GREAT BRITAIN

In Scotland, Bond is briefed at a naval base about submarines. It is Faslane Naval Base northeast of Glasgow at Gare Loch.

EGYPT

Bond then is sent to Cairo. He first visits an old Oxford friend in a bedouin tent in the desert. The shot had been filmed at Saqqara oasis (which we visited here) one hour south of Cairo. The site is famous for Egypts oldest pyramids, but the oasis scenerey changed a lot in the years.
Bond gets a contact, Fekkesh, and heads to his beautiful oriental mansion in downtown Cairo. It is the todays Gayer-Anderson-Museum next to the Ibn Tulun Mosque. The museums roof, where Bond has a fight, still looks the same. Both locations are situated in the neighborhood “Darb al-Ahmar” – the Red Alley (this is our intel on the area).

The roof of the Gayer-Anderson-Museum

Bonds contact, Fekkesh, gets killed by Jaws in a tomb at the Giza necropolis, a vast complex east of Cairo with the three Great Pyramids and the Sphinx (read our story here about how to bargain your way through Giza).
The Mojaba Club in Cairo was a studio set. Some location blogs claim, it’s the Mena House hotel next to the Giza Pyramids – their dance hall has a striking similarity. But the Mena House management confirmed to us, there had been no filming back in the 1970s.
A real location are Karnak, Medinet Habu and the Ramesseum though – ancient temples in the city of Luxor south the Nile (you can read our story about it here). Karnak is famous for its Hypostyle Hall, an area filled with massive columns. Its the scene, where Jaws gets buried.
The felucca boat boarding had been filmed at a river bank in Luxor. Today, there a numerous spots to rent a felucca for short trips – or even day-long Nile cruises (read more about our Egypt felucca tips here).
The last Egypt spot in the film is Abu Simbel, a temple close to the Sudan border, which we visited for you too of course (read more about it here). It is the joint MI6 and KGB headquarter. There, Bond finally becomes “the spy who loved me” for Triple X.

ITALY

The Lotus emerges at Romazzina beach

Villain Karl Strombergs hideout is an underwater mansion off Sardinia. Bond and Triple X stay at Hotel Cala di Volpe north of Olbia. Bonds “suite” had been filmed at the hotel’s Piano Bar.
Bond gets his underwater Lotus from Q at the pier in Palau. The later on chase had been filmed in the village of San Pantaleo (get to know the best Pizza place here), at a road at Cala Dragunara and along Costa Smeralda. The Lotus jumps into the ocean at Liscia di Vacca and comes back ashore at Capriccioli beach (a place worth multiple visits as you can read here).

BAHAMAS

The showdown of “The Spy Who Loved Me” had been filmed in the waters off New Providence Island at Coral Harbor (pssst – no trespassing for tourists). It’s the same spot, the Bond crew used for their underwater actions in Thunderball and the opening scene of Casino Royale.

MALTA

The final scene with the escape pod though had been filmed off the coast of Malta.

For more movie locations to all the other James Bond films, check our location map right here!

© 1977 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation (1,3), © HuntingBond (2)