Ready for some Alpine fun?

Planning a holiday? Try Switzerland. For, romancing in the Swiss Alps and going on a roller-coaster ride across those pristine mountain lines, which you so often see in the movies, is now within your budget.

The land of snow and mountains, Switzerland has aroused fascination, especially in the Hindi film industry which never tires of choosing one of the country’s breathtaking locales for a movie or song sequence.

Now, in an initiative to attract more Indian tourists, there are offers aplenty, among which Swiss Tourism is offering a five-day vacation in Switzerland for less than Rs50,000,  says an official. This includes the return airfare between Delhi and Zurich by Swiss International Airline, and will take you to all the major attractions in Switzerland, with accomodation, sightseeing and breakfast.

One can, thereafter, stay at one of the apartments which have a kitchen for Rs2,000 per night. The Rs50,000 package, however, does not include the visa charges, one learns.

Experts say the most convenient way to explore Switzerland is by the Swiss travel system, which allots one a pass, with which you can use all public modes of travel too. The pass also lets you visit museums for free and, in some places like Mount Pilatus, you get a good discount.

With Switzerland becoming a part of the Schengen Agreement on Dec 12, 2008, officials are hoping it will be more convenient to travel to the country. So whether it’s the Glacier 3000 – the world’s highest Alpine coaster – where a song from the recent movie Bachna Ae Haseeno was shot, or Matterhorn which has the highest cable car in Europe, a Swiss holiday seems to be within one’s reach.