Switzerland

As long as I can remember I've wanted to visit Switzerland. I guess reading the Heidi stories and seeing all those photos of mountains and green hillsides is what did it.
And of course it's so green- when you come from a sunburnt country, green, green grass seems like a colour miracle
The biggest problem with traveling there seems to be is that everyone says Switzerland is an expensive place to visit. Here is what we've found:
1. Accommodation
We are paying CH700 a week for a beautiful two bedroom apartment on a hill overlooking
Lake Thun about ten minutes from Interlaken. It's built underneath a multimillion dollar house with the owners living upstairs but with our own private entrance. That's on a par with all the other places that we have stayed this holiday but a bit dearer than holiday cottages in England which average about 380GBP. It's very difficult to compare modern accommodation to lovely old cottages, and this time we have been visiting holiday areas where the rents are higher in France and the cleaning fees and Security deposits have been considerably higher.
2.Food
Eating out in most of France is a delight that we find very affordable (the Savoyard food is much heavier and not really our taste). We've never struck food that was anything less than wonderful and shopping in supermarkets for our daily needs is always fun and, compared to Australia, very reasonable. However, we have found it hard to find a descent supermarket here in Thun, Spiez or Faulensee. The prices seem a bit like Australia (which means expensive if you come from anywhere else ) but meat seems very expensive and so does eating out. We haven't eaten out anywhere except the top of Jungfrau and that certainly was not expensive and the quality was surprisingly good for such a busy sort of place but reading menus as we walk past restaurants/cafes the prices have not encouraged us to go out for a meal as yet.
3. Holiday Activities
This is where it gets expensive in Switzerland. Traveling up mountains by trains, cable cars, cog wheel trains and funiculars is very expensive. Yesterday we spent CH 239.80 on a ticket from Thun to Jungfraujoch (CH480 was the full price. We had purchased a Half Price Pass for 240 dollars so we recouped that the first time we used it ). Add in lunch and parking and you have an expensive day. Everywhere you go on a train is expensive and the train journeys in Switzerland are what you are here for... Those mountain vistas ! So everyday can be a very expensive outing though when you've done them you can see why they are expensive.

Switzerland is all that I imagined it would be.
Well, this little section that we are visiting is anyway.

Huge mountains with snow still clinging to them. Green, green meadows with cows, their bells tinkling as they move about and cute timber houses clinging to the hillsides.

Yes, just like Heidi !!