Chamonix, France - July 17th to 19th, 2025

Chamonix is a town in the heart of the French Alps, at the base of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe. In the winter, Chamonix is a ski resort, one of the oldest in France. In the summer, it attracts all kinds of outdoor enthusiasts, including hikers, backpackers, paragliders, white water rafters, and mountain bikers. Others come for just the food, drinks, and stunning views from the valley and from the top of nearby gondolas. The Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB) long distance hiking trail can be reached from Chamonix via a short gondola ride. We were in Chamonix for the TMB. We spent three nights in Chamonix before starting the TMB and spent several more nights in Chamonix after we completed the trail. This post only covers our first stay in Chamonix.

Thursday was a long travel day. The distance wasn’t far, from Gimmelwald in Switzerland to Chamonix in France, but it took us one gondola, one bus, and six different trains to get there, taking us most of the day. We spent more time waiting for the next leg of the journey than we actually spent traveling.

We ate breakfast quickly at 8 am, checked out of Pension Gimmelwald, and caught the 8:28 gondola down to Stechelberg. Ten minutes later, we were on the bus to the Lauterbrunnen train station (Bahnhof). We were trying to make sure we made the 10:01 train from Lauterbrunnen to Interlaken Ost. However, since we caught the 8:28 gondola instead of the 8:58 gondola, we were able to hop on the earlier train, at 9:31 am. However, this just meant that we had an extra half hour to wait in Interlaken.

For the next leg, Interlaken Ost to Spiez, we had seat reservations. Reservations were optional, but we like knowing that we’ll have a seat. This was the first travel day on our Eurail Passes. We bought the Eurail Global Flexi Pass which gave us ten non-consecutive days of travel within a 60 day window. However, the passes don’t cover seat reservations, so we had to pay for those separately. We bought the seat reservations through the Eurail website. It’s more expensive that way than going directly to the appropriate train company, but we liked having all of the reservations in one place.

We arrived in Interlaken Ost before 10 am and our next train didn’t leave until 10:59 am. Interlaken Ost was the starting location for our train and it was pretty empty when we departed Interlaken Ost. However, the next stop was Interlaken West, where the train filled up quickly. There were people standing and lots of large luggage blocking the aisles. So we allowed plenty of time to gather up our luggage and get to the lower level of the train car, as it was a double-decker, before the train arrived in Spiez at 11:23 am.

In Spiez, our connection was fairly short, only 15 minutes, before hopping on our next train, taking us to Visp. Again, we had seat reservations. This train was not quite as crowded, but we’re still glad we had assigned seats.

In Visp, we had scheduled a 32 minute connection. When we arrived in Visp, at 12:04, there was an earlier train going to the same destination, Martigny. Since we didn’t have seat reservations, we could have taken it, but we would have had to edit the journey in our Eurail phone app before boarding the train, so we decided to stick to the original plan and wait for the next one. Ann purposely didn’t schedule tight connections. However, in hindsight, it might have been better to book the tighter connections, knowing there were later options if we didn’t make the connection. If a connection is missed, then there is time while waiting at the station to edit the journey to the later train. However, it does require an internet connection. So that would backfire if there wasn’t good cell service at the train station.

Our train from Visp to Martigny was actually six minutes delayed. The Swiss are proud of the punctuality of their trains. As we pulled out of the station, they expressed their apologies for the six minute delay due to technical issues, and repeated that apology in three different languages, French, German, and English. While on the train, we ate our lunch. We still had our hiking food that we bought back in Gimmelwald, since we didn’t do any hiking there. So lunch was landjäger (a semi-dried sausage), cheese, cashews, and granola bars.

We reached Martigny at 1:16 pm and had about an hour to wait for the train to Vallorcine. It was a regional train, called the Mont Blanc Express. It was a steep, winding, and beautiful ride through the mountains up to Vallorcine, just over the border in France.

At Vallorcine, we hopped off the train. At this point, quite a few people seemed confused. Some of the train information said that Vallorcine was the end stop, but then other information said that it continued on to Chamonix. Most of the others got back on the train, along with new passengers. Again, we decided to wait for our planned train.

We figured out what caused the confusion. When the train crossed the Swiss-French border, it changes train numbers, so it looks like a different train, when, in fact, it is just a continuation of the same train. So we could have just stayed on the train.

Then it got confusing again, because the train we got on 35 minutes later came from the direction of Chamonix, instead of from Martigny. So there are more trains running between Chamonix to Vallorcine, than between Martigny and Chamonix. But we believe all those trains are called the Mont Blanc Express. Just be sure to check the train schedules to get on the right train to reach your destination.

From the Chamonix Mont Blanc train station (gare), it was just a 5 minute walk over to our hotel, the Alpina Eclectic Hotel. So, after leaving Gimmelwald around 8:15 am, we finally reached our destination at 4:30 pm. It was a long day of traveling, but it didn’t feel rushed or hectic, other than the one crowded train from Interlaken to Spiez.

Alpina Eclectic Hotel is a high rise, modern-looking hotel. Our room was up on the sixth floor. There was no air-conditioning, but opening up the large window in the room cooled it down to a comfortable temperature. After freshening up in our room, we headed out to find dinner.

We both didn’t feel very hungry and were looking for something healthy. We remembered passing a supermarket on our walk from the train station, so we went there in search of a pre-made salad. The store didn’t turn up anything interesting to us, so we walked over to the Elevation 1904 restaurant, as Ann remembered the hamburgers smelling pretty good when we walked by before and they also served salads.

We started out at a shady table outside, but as the sun got lower in the sky, it started beating down on us. Keith ordered a dinner salad with chicken and bacon. Despite smelling the burgers earlier, Ann tried to go a little healthier and ordered the chicken burger (sandwich) with avocado along with a mixed side salad. She enjoyed the salad, but the chicken sandwich was rather dry. It didn’t come with sauce, so she added Dijonnaise. She didn’t really care for the sauce, so she tried adding mayonnaise, but that didn’t mask it very well. Even with sauce, the chicken itself was dry and over-cooked. The chicken on Keith’s salad was the same. So our meals turned out to be rather disappointing.

Breakfast at Alpina Eclectic was a wonderful buffet, with a chef making eggs to order. The buffet is up on the 7th floor, with a wall of windows giving you a wonderful view of the city and the mountain peaks. Paragliders were already making their morning flights, giving us a show while we ate.

Friday, we spent the morning organizing our gear, splitting it into what we will take on trail with us and what we will store in Chamonix while we’re on trail. There were some items we needed to pick up, so we spent the afternoon strolling the town and picking up supplies. Keith needed a new hat because he left his on one of the trains the day before. He also needed some more medication. Ann picked up some immune boost, more Ricola cough drops, and a small tube of sunblock. Keith bought a pair of shorts to sleep in that were faster drying than the ones he had packed.

For lunch, we ate at La Crêperie by Montcham. Keith had the Savoyarde salad while Ann tried the Traversée Ibérique galette. The salad came with cheese on top of little triangular chips of buckwheat, potatoes, and bacon. Ann tried galettes before, back in York, England (York, England - May 20th to 22nd and June 20th to 23rd, 2025), but this one was different. The one in York was served more like a handheld, while this one in Chamonix was served flat on a plate, with the edges folded in. A galette is similar to a crèpe, but savory and made with buckwheat flour. The Traversée Ibérique, which translates to Iberian Crossing, came with chorizo, fried egg, comté cheese, and a roasted pepper cream. It was delicious.

Before dinner, Keith went and got his hair cut. The last time he got it cut was in Westport, Ireland, over two months ago (Westport, Ireland - May 12th to 15th, 2025).

For dinner, we went to Bistrot des Sports. We arrived around 6 pm, but the waiter made sure we understood that their full dinner menu was not available until 7 pm. We wanted to try the tartiflette which was on their all-day menu, so we didn’t need to wait.

A tartiflette is a dish from the Savoy region of the French Alps. It is made with potatoes, reblochon cheese, bacon, and onions. Bistrot des Sports served it with a small salad. It was a tasty and filling dish.

Since Ann still didn’t quite feel back to normal from her cold, we decided to make our first day of hiking a little shorter. Instead of starting the TMB trail at the top of the Plan Praz gondola, we decided to take the Le Brevant cable car from Plan Praz over to Brevant and start the trail there. That eliminated the 600 meter (2000 foot) elevation gain at the beginning and reduced the hike from 13.5 kilometers (8.5 miles) to 10.5 kilometers (6.5 miles). Then we would do that small section that we skipped when we return to Chamonix in three weeks.

Friday evening, we tried to update our itinerary in the Hiking Club app, but couldn’t figure out how to add another day. At 9 pm, Ann sent an email to the Hiking Club. They responded 6 hours later at 3 am (1 pm in Sydney, Australia). Because the app only allows 15 days for the TMB, they had originally done a “one-off” on their side to give us 21 days. So they not only made us a new itinerary with 22 days, but already made the adjustments Ann described and sent us a new map file to download. We know the Hiking Club is a small organization, so getting such a quick and thorough response was amazing. We want to give a big shout out to Brendan and anyone else at the Hiking Club that made that happen so quickly!

Saturday, we went up to Mer de Glace. Mer de Glace is a nearby glacier. The Montenvers cog train takes you up to where you can view the glacier. Then a cable car takes you down to the ice caves. A tunnel is dug into the glacier every year so that people can walk into the glacier. It takes four months to chisel out the ice cave every year, which has been a tradition since 1940.

We opted for the full experience. The train departs near the main train station in Chamonix. It is about a 20 minute ride up to Montenvers. There were nice views of the Chamonix valley along the way.

At Montenvers, there is a hotel, a couple of restaurants, and a glacier viewing platform. The cable car leads from there as well. There is a trail down to the ice cave if you don’t want to ride the cable car, but we’re not sure how hard of a trail it is.

The ice cave is lined with signs, with all kinds of information about glaciers. One lets you know that the air inside the bubbles of the ice of the glacier are 500 years old. Another tells you that the glacier will no longer be at Montenvers in 50 years.

After visiting the ice cave, we bought a couple of drinks at one of the restaurants. We drink them outside, enjoying the views of the glacier and the waterfalls. Then we took the train back to Chanonix.

Since we had gone up early in the day, the train was not too crowded. That was not true on the way back down, They packed the train full until some people had to stand the whole way back down. Luckily, we got one of the last seats. However, Ann didn’t fit very well and was not very comfortable.

It was Saturday, so there was a market going on near our hotel. We stopped at the market to pick up an apple for lunch on the trail the following day. We also stopped at a food stand and ordered falafel wraps for lunch. By the time they prepared them, it started to rain, so we took them up to our room to eat them. They were pretty tasty.

The rest of the afternoon, we prepared for our hike. After packing what we needed for the trail into our backpacks, we put the remainder of our gear into our Sojourn luggage. Then we carried our spare luggage over to Hotel Le Faucigny. It is the hotel we will be staying at when we return to Chamonix in three weeks. They agreed to store two pieces of luggage for us for 35 euros. If you want to know what we carried on trail, see our previous post: Packing for the Tour du Mont Blanc.

For dinner, Keith felt like eating Italian, so we went to Bistrot Bonatti. We both had the house salad. Then Keith had the lasagna bolognese while Ann had the linguine with chorizo. We were stuffed, but we knew we would need that carb load the following day.

We enjoyed our first visit of Chamonix, but we were excited to get started on the Tour du Mont Blanc the next day. We would like to say that we got a good night’s rest that evening, but our anticipation and a little bit of anxiety got in the way. Despite that, we woke up the next morning, ready to hit the trail.

Check out our related video: Chamonix, France

(Ann)