Chamonix and the foot of Mont Blanc
Where the Tour du Mont Blanc begins.
Chamonix sits in a deep valley at the foot of Mont Blanc, hemmed in by needles of rock and the glaciers that pour down between them. It is a small town that has spent two centuries learning to live beneath the highest mountain in the Alps.
For us it was both a beginning and an end — the place where the Tour du Mont Blanc starts and, eight days later, where it closes the loop. You arrive among cable cars, mountaineers and shop windows full of rope and crampons, buy the last of your provisions and a gas canister, and walk out of town toward Les Houches.
Above the rooftops the Aiguille du Midi and the white dome of Mont Blanc hold the whole valley in view. Whatever the route does to you over the days that follow, it is this first sight of the massif that stays.