The last time we visited Chamonix was during our 2007 Great Alpine Traverse adventure when we spent about 48 hours here. It was a rain drenching two days and we could barely recognize Mont Blanc in the backdrop. We had a wonderful time though, so we decide to revisit this place and make sure we spend enough time here to explore the area – we’ll be here for ten days straight this time around.

We fly into Geneva Switzerland on Air France with a stop over at Charles de Gaulle. We booked the seats five months earlier at a round trip price of $800, almost half of what we paid the last time. However, a few months later, Swiss Air started offering a direct flight from Washington Dulles to Geneva with no stop over. What a bummer. Anyway, Air France seems to be run rather smoothly, our flights are right on time and unlike our first trip here on Lufthansa, the luggage arrives intact this time around. However, beware of any possible French worker strike, it’s their favorite national pass time. The flight attendants are very friendly. The only snafu is for some reason, Air France switches the plane and we lose our pre assigned seats, so we wind up in the exit row of a Boeing 777-200, which has extremely narrow seats. It must be designed for the French; any modern full size Americans will have a big problem adapting to this torturous 6 hour-long flight sitting in those front exit row seats.

Paris Charles de Gaulle is a really old airport; part of it is undergoing renovation. Its interior condition (the older center part) reminds me of La Guardia and Heathrow. However, it does have a unique contemporary glass frame architecture, part of the concourse structure looks like a space dock. Even the jet ways are encased in glass so one can look out to the parked plane as one go on board.

Charles de Gaulle Glass Enclosed Jetway

Déjà Vu, Geneva is quite overcast with light drizzle as we arrive, it kind of reminds us of our first visit. By the time we go through the custom, the Mountain Drop Off shuttle driver is already waiting outside for us. We reserved the shuttle on line just two days before for a very reasonable charge of 25€ per person. The young driver speaks fluent English and is very courteous. It turns out many British like to settle in Chamonix. When we arrive at Chamonix after the hour-long drive, it’s already noon local time (6AM US east coast time). We have been on the road for 12 hours.

A building in Chamonix

After checking in to our hotel, the Grand Hotel des Alpes, we check out the town a bit. It’s not that crowded at all, may be the rain deters the tourists a bit. We notice a lot of tourists bring their dogs along, I guess the Europeans like to travel with  their dogs.

La Potiniere and Valentino at center of town

We decide to have a quick dinner at La Potiniere. The restaurant is located at the main stretch of town and is always crowded. We have not done any research on what are the good restaurants in town. At this point, we are more interested in having an early dinner and crash the bed. So we just order from the menu du jour, a simple grilled salmon with rice pilaf, and chicken with mushroom sauce. Unfortunately, the salmon is too dry, and the chicken is nothing to write home about. The service is mediocre. Oh well, zero star for this place.