Few ski resorts are as evocative as Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. Set in the sawtooth-sided valley beneath the north face of Europe’s highest peak, the town has a strong claim to be the birthplace not just of mountaineering, but of mountain tourism full stop.
In 1741, two intrepid British travellers, William Windham and Richard Pococke, paid a visit to what was then just a few shepherds’ huts clustered around a Benedictine monastery. Their account of the marvels of “Chamouny” and its glaciers made the village a must-see for adventurous, aristocratic young Europeans undertaking what was known as “The Grand Tour”. Goethe passed through in the late 1770s. Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his future wife Mary Wollstonecraft visited in 1816 (with Mary drawing inspiration for her putative novel, Frankenstein).
