Best towns in France to visit after hiking Mt Blanc

How far do you wish to travel?

We were just in Chamonix to hike and loved Megeve and Annecy.

The Berner Oberland area - Lauterbrunnen and Murren - are a bit further, but just spectacular. One of our top five regions and we've visited 107 countries.

Annecy is close to Chamonix -- about an hour by bus and beautiful -- worth a couple of nights. We spent 4 there but we are old and had a balcony overlooking the canal and old prison and enjoyed just sucking up the beauty -- there isn't a lot 'to do'.

Being a contrarian here but we detested Annency. We visited after the TMB as well.

Perhaps it is because it was a weekend but it was jammed with people; however, our hotel concierge (who was born there) said it has gotten so bad in the summers that she was thinking of moving.

The lakeside bike path was dangerously crowded and we even saw an ambulance responding to a collision between two bikers after having a few near misses ourselves. The two in town restaurants were the worst of our European travels and the waiters did not even care. There was one fantastic place up on the hill outside of town that was spectacular though.

I assume you are starting out of Geneva as most doing the TMB from the states do. Since the TMB is centered around smaller towns, consider doing a loop like Geneva - Lyon - Dijon - Geneva. This tours famous French cities, which are much cheaper than Switzerland.

For different scenery than the mountains you will have just spent 10 days in, maybe hop down to the Med coast. Cassis is wonderful and the Calanques are so beautiful.

If you still need mountains, then the previous posts recommending the Berner Oberland are hard to beat.

Don't forget to give Chamonix a day or two at the end of your trip. We really enjoyed that town.

The Oberland is a wonderful destination, even in September (the weather starts to turn throughout the month pretty rapidly, btw). If you've had your fill of mountains, you can stick to the lowlands. Close by Chamonix there are two towns on the lake that are worth a stop: Yvoire and Evian (yes, the source of the water). You can also take a ferry across the lake to the Swiss side. The whole region from Lausanne through the Lavaux vineyards and past Montreaux is really a beautiful stretch. (Tip in Montreaux -- the cog wheel road railway to Rocher de Naye will give a great shorter hike and panorama over the Lake and the Alps). If you have not tired of mountain treks, from Chamonix you can take a train or drive through to Lac Emosson and down through the Valais and head to Zermatt.

Into France you have Lyon and Annecy as mentioned (weekend is the worst for crowds, as mentioned) but also the vineyards and bill villages in Bourgongne, from Beaune to Dijon is a popular stretch. Further south of Lyon you have places like Vienne and Valence and into the Southern Rhone or east into La Drome..

(I used to live in Switzerland, in Lausanne but now am part-time in the South and have driven or trained extensively through all these places).

Thank you all for the great ideas! Greatly appreciated :-)

Yvoire, France on Lake Geneva. After doing the RS My Way Alpine trip which ended in Chamonix, we traveled by Flixbus to Geneva where we took the train to Nyon, Switzerland where we spent a few nights so we could ferry across the lake to Yvoire, France. A delightful pedestrian only medieval town. Nyon itself has a lot of Roman history. There are a number of lovely towns on Lake Geneva. Have a wonderful trip,