7 Days in the French Alps: Mont Blanc & the Lakes

Transfer in from Geneva, about an hour by road, or ride the scenic Mont Blanc Express up the valley if you are going car-free. Settle into Chamonix and walk the town with Mont Blanc and its glaciers filling the sky above you. Get your bearings, scope the lift stations for tomorrow, and keep the first evening easy. Above all, watch the forecast: the plan is to spend your first clear morning up high.

On the first clear, stable morning, ride the Aiguille du Midi cable car to a terrace at 3,842m, the most jaw-dropping view in the Alps, with Mont Blanc close enough to feel the cold off it and the glass Step into the Void box for the brave. Reserve a timed slot in advance and go up early before the cloud builds, and bring a real jacket, it can be below freezing up top even in July. In the afternoon, take the little red Montenvers rack railway to the Mer de Glace, France's largest glacier, and its ice cave. It is the perfect pairing: the high terrace in the clear morning, the glacier as the light softens.

Give a full day to the trails that sit eye-to-eye with the Mont Blanc massif. The classic is Lac Blanc from the La Flégère lift, a turquoise tarn that mirrors the whole range on a still morning, or the Grand Balcon Sud traverse along the sunny Brévent and Flégère side. Start early to beat the crowds and the midday haze, and check trail conditions, snow can linger into early summer. If a big hike is not your thing, ride Le Brévent for the single best face-on portrait of Mont Blanc and walk as little or as much as you like.

A short transfer brings you to Megève, the cobbled, car-free village the Rothschilds built as France's answer to St. Moritz. Ride the gondola up Mont d'Arbois for gentle, sweeping views, wander the medieval centre, then settle in for a long, gourmet Savoyard dinner, this is one of the great eating villages in the Alps. It is a deliberate change of pace after Chamonix's intensity: softer, sunnier, indulgent. One refined night here is the hinge of the trip.

On to Annecy, the Venice of the Alps, where canals thread a pastel old town beneath the peaks. Drop your bags and lose the afternoon to the lanes, the flower-lined waterways, and the Pont des Amours, then find a lakefront table and watch the water glow at dusk. After the high mountains, the shift to lake-town ease is the whole reason to end here. Annecy sits right on the rail line, so this leg is easy with or without a car.

Spend the day on the lake itself, rated among the cleanest in Europe. Rent a bike and ride the flat lakeside greenway, the Voie Verte, swim from one of the grassy beaches, and cross the water to lunch in pretty Talloires. A tip worth knowing: book lunch rather than dinner at the lakeside tables in Talloires, the same view costs far less at midday. Close the day with a boat cruise or an aperitif on the front.

A final slow morning by the water, a coffee on the front and one last loop of the old town, then the short hop back to Geneva, about 45 minutes, for your flight. If your schedule allows a late departure, squeeze in one more swim. It is a gentle, unhurried way to end a trip that began under the glaciers.