Chamonix is a resort area at the base of Mont Blanc in the French Alps. It is an incredibly beautiful town, serviced by several cable cars that take you up into the mountains. It is also incredibly touristy, but that didn’t bother me. It is full of shops, restaurants, bars, cafes, and people!
We ended up in Chamonix at the end of our hike around Mont Blanc. Our first view came from above the town as our hike ended at the cable car station high up in the mountains. We had a celebratory drink while watching paragliders run & jump from cliffs to coast through the mountain air with the town below. It was very cool to view the town this way first, from above, before heading down and in!
We were so happy as we walked into the town, it was SO bustling! There were people everywhere and we were coming down off of 7 days of hiking the mountain, so it had been a while since we’d seen so much action. We checked into our hotel “Pointe Isabelle”, and quickly got ourselves ready to get out into the streets. Our hotel was lovely and our room and balcony were very comfortable. We caught a bus to Annecy early the next morning, so we didn’t get a chance to try the breakfast, but it looked like it would have been wonderful.
The Arve River runs right through Chamonix, which makes it extremely picturesque and a gorgeous place to stroll around. The color of the glacier water running through the town looks unreal, we kept calling it the “Gatorade River” because it looked like that clear blue bottle you get! Wandering around town for hours was so perfectly enjoyable, we were glad we made it with enough time to explore. Almost everywhere you go in the town, you can see the glacier up on the mountain. It shines in the sunlight and absolutely glows at dusk as the sun is setting. They are views that I truly have never seen before in my life.
Of course, since we were finally in a French town, we had to grab some macarons from Cote Macaron, and they were a delight as always. When we were finally ready to take a break, we sat down outside “Cafe Josephine” for some drinks, which was the most picture perfect French cafe. We sat outside and had a great drink and ran into quite a few people we’d met while trekking throughout the week. It was a perfect spot to relax and enjoy a cocktail in the sun after a week of hiking! I can imagine it would also be an incredibly cozy spot in the winter. We also grabbed another drink at L’Hydromel since we clearly needed to celebrate our last day of hiking!
This is a very busy and popular town and I would highly suggest making a dinner reservation here if you want to eat somewhere special. We had a reservation at “Panier des 4 saisons” and we couldn’t have been happier with our meal here. We started with some rosé, salads, and a salmon tartar. We finished with some surf and turf, I had some delicious grilled shrimp and my husband had a steak. We were really glad we made a reservation here, it was cozy, the staff was so kind, and it was an excellent way to end our time trekking around Mont Blanc.
From town the next morning, we were able to take a Flix bus very easily onwards to our next destination, which was Annecy, France. Chamonix is easily accessible and would be a wonderful stop anytime during the year, whether you are hiking, mountain biking, paragliding, skiing, or just want to see a gorgeous mountain town in France.
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