Mann's fictional sanatorium, the Berghof, is probably modelled on the Schatzalp, a mansion reachable only by foot or funicular, which today is a hotel.
Where the Chinese have constructed a winding stairway of stone, beautiful from all points of view, Europeans or Americans will run up a funicular railway, a staring scar that will never heal.
At the Glion funicular he checked his bicycle and took a small beer on the terrace of the station buffet, meanwhile watching the little bug crawl down the eighty-degree slope of the hill.
That was talk, but Nicole had a better hold on him now and she held it; she turned coquette and walked away, leaving him as suspended as in the funicular of the afternoon.
The Alpine lands, home of the toy and the funicular, the merry-go-round and the thin chime, were not a being here, as in France with French vines growing over one's feet on the ground.