Travel Guide > Europe > France > Rhône-Alpes > Chamonix
Chamonix is a town and popular ski resort in the Haute-Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in central eastern France. It is located in the eastern portion of The Alps and the scenery is stunning here. Chamonix has about 10,000 inhabitants living in one of the highest communes of the country at around 1,000 metres above sea level. Officially, the Mont Blanc is within its boundaries as well, and at 4810 metres is the highest mountain in Europe outside of the Caucasus region.
Chamonix is heaven for outdoor enthusiasts. Activities include ice climbing, skiing and snowboarding in winter and trekking, paragliding, canyoning, rafting and rock climbing in summer.
Chamonix is especially famous for its spectacular cable car up to the Aiguille du Midi (3842 metres), the highest in Europe.
Other sights include:
The nearest airport is Geneva Cointrin International Airport (GVA). Dozens of airlines serve cities in Europe and further away. Lowcost airline Easyjet has many flights to/from Ajaccio, Alicante, Amsterdam, Asturias, Barcelona, Bastia, Belfast, Berlin, Birmingham, Bordeaux, Bournemouth, Bristol, Brussels, Budapest, Cagliari, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Ibiza, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Lisbon, Liverpool, London, Madrid, Málaga, Manchester, Marrakech, Nantes, Naples, Newcastle, Nice, Olbia, Palma de Mallorca, Paris, Porto, Rome, Sharm el Sheikh, Split, Stockholm and Toulouse. Some of them are seasonal only. Many other airlines mainly serve European destinations (as far away as Moscow and Reykjavik.
Cities further away include Montreal, Toronto, Algiers, Mauritius, New York, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Kuwait, Tehran, Beirut, Amman, Riyadh, several places in Tunisia and Morocco, and Tashkent.
From Chamonix-Mont Blanc train station the Mont Blanc Express narrow-gauge train travels between Saintt-Gervais-le Fayet, 23 kilometres west of Chamonix, to Martigny in Switzerland, stopping en route in Les Houches, Chamonix and Argentière. There are nine to 12 return trips a day taking roughly 40 minutes.
Chamonix is just a short hop by car from Italy through the Mont Blanc tunnel and Switzerland over the Col de Montets to Martigny. The A40 highway runs towards Geneva, starting about 25 kilometres west from Chamonix.
Buses connect Chamonix three times daily with Geneva Airport, taking almost 2 hours on average. There are also regular connections towards Courmayeur in Italy.
| Property | Address | Type | Popularity |
|---|---|---|---|
| AAE Chamonix Chalet Pele | Chemin du Betty Chamonix-Mont-Blanc | Hotel | - |
| AAE Chamonix Chalet Whymper | Impasse de l'Androsace Chamonix-Mont-Blanc | Hotel | 78 |
| AAE Chamonix Hotel El Paso | 37, Impasse des Rhododendrons Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France | Hotel | 76 |
| AAE Hotel Louvre | 95, Impasse Androsace, Chamonix | Hotel | 75 |
| Chalet Etape Guesthouse | 5B Résidence Le Mummery 27 Avenue du Savoy | Guesthouse | - |
| Chalet Les Frênes | 637 Route de Vers le Nant Les Bossons | Guesthouse | 78 |
| Hotel du Bois | 475 Avenue des Alpages La Griaz, 74310,Les Houches | Hotel | 79 |
| La Source Backpackers Chalet | 212 Clairiere du Belvedere | Guesthouse | 92 |
| Le Vert Hotel | 964 Route des Gaillands | Hotel | 82 |
| Lutetia 2 | 225 Rue Du Dr Paccard | Apartment | - |
| SkiBandB | 345 Chemin du Cerro Les Bossons | Guesthouse | 93 |
This is version 2. Last edited at 1:20 on Nov 24, 09 by Peter (+6). 4 articles link to this page.

Except where otherwise noted, content of this article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License