Iseltwald near Interlaken
Still packed with Crash Landing on You fans
Six years after the finale, the craze continues
The small lakeside village in Switzerland where the drama Crash Landing on You, starring Hyun Bin and Son Yejin, was filmed in 2019 to 2020 is still drawing tourists from all around the world.
On the 5th (local time), the U.S. daily The Washington Post (WP) reported that fans of the hit Korean drama Crash Landing on You are still traveling in order to visit the Swiss lakeside pier that became the drama's "breakout star."
The place these fans are flocking to is Iseltwald, near Interlaken. In the series, it appears as the spot where the male lead, North Korean officer Ri Jeonghyeok (played by Hyun Bin), plays the piano while thinking of his older brother during his study-abroad days in Switzerland. It is also where the female lead, Yoon Seri (played by Son Yejin), the youngest daughter of a South Korean chaebol family, happens to hear Ri Jeonghyeok’s piano performance while traveling in Switzerland. Since then, the pier has become a must-visit photo spot for tourists.
Stephanie and Caleb Rouse, a couple from Pittsburgh in the United States, waited two hours to take a photo on the pier when they visited Iseltwald in October last year. While waiting, they passed the time chatting with drama fans from Korea and Japan. Once they finally stepped onto the pier, they played the drama’s original soundtrack to set the mood and took their “proof shot.” Stephanie said, “It was a really sweet and romantic moment.”
Titia Weiland, a manager at the local tourism board, told WP, “This was originally a pier that was actually in use, but hardly anyone used it,” adding, “It became famous thanks to the drama.” According to the tourism board, the area had originally been visited mainly by tourists who came in summer to hike in the Alps or go boating on the lake. However, after the drama aired and the COVID-19 pandemic ended, as many as 1,000 people a day began pouring into the village of 400 residents starting in 2022.
Iseltwald, which was not equipped to handle large numbers of visitors, suffered greatly as the sudden surge in tourists made the village extremely congested. In particular, as pedestrian and vehicle traffic increased and residents’ inconvenience grew, the authorities restricted access for tour buses to two vehicles every two hours, and also introduced two double-decker buses with a capacity of 120 passengers each on the Interlaken-Iseltwald express bus route. Then, in 2023, they installed a turnstile at the pier and began charging an entrance fee of 5 Swiss francs (about 9,000 won).
As of 2024, revenue from pier entrance fees amounts to about 307,000 dollars (about 450 million won), which is used to cover maintenance costs such as garbage disposal and restroom cleaning. However, the tourism board explained, “Many people do not go up onto the pier itself and instead take photos next to it, so compared with the volume of visitors, the revenue is not extraordinarily high.”
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