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Chamonix Alps tix

Posted by on

My husband and I are staying two nights in Annecy in early September, planning to spend one day in Chamonix. We would love to take the lift to Aiguille du Midi (looks like 1-1.5 hr drive so was thinking an 0830 or 0900 reservation to be safe). We'd like to go on to Helbronner but it looks like the only advance tickets we can purchase is to Aiguille du Midi, then do we purchase the gondola to Helbronner once we get up there, or how do we purchase in advance? I would love to wait on weather but we have no other options for days and I've heard the passes sell out--I assume this is the ticket to Aiguille du Midi that sells out?
Or instead of Helbronner, do we have time to take the cogwheel train to Montenvers Mer de Glace in the afternoon? There's a MontBlanc MultiPass on the ticket site that includes both for a discount.
For reference, we've been to Berner Oberland and Zermatt and have been to all summits except Jungfrau, which is why we wanted to just take a day or two in the French Alps to get a "taste of mountain" before spending 3 weeks in France. So I guess I'm saying we don't need to squeeze everything in but are happy to fill our day with great mountain experiences.
Other than the summits, we were just going to walk around Chamonix unless you have other ideas.

The day before will be our early morning arrival from the US, driving from Geneva A/P to Annecy, so we were just planning to walk the town, drive around the lake, etc. We plan to ask at the Avis (French side) desk for the vignette to drive into Switzerland--any thoughts on this or about our arrival day in Annecy?

Thanks much!

Posted by
981 posts

1) Regarding the AdM tickets, it is not the tickets that will sell out, but the reservations
for the uphill trips will book up, and if you don't have one, you'll be left with whatever's
available. Of course, if the weather's lousy, you may be able to go right up, but you'll see
nothing (but I think you're aware of this already).

2) You may be able to purchase the Helbronner tickets at the base of the AdM, but you can
for sure buy them at the top of the second stage, and it's first come first served, so you
probably want to check that out as soon as you get to the top.

Note that the Panoramique departure schedule starts getting cut in mid-August. You
don't need a ticket/reservation to come back.

3) It is a 15-20 walk from AdM over to the Montevers train station. You probably need 3+
hours to do it right, considering the RT train, the gondola down to the level of the glacier
and enjoying the ice cave.

4) Assuming you don't want to take the Skyway Monte Bianco down into Italy, I think your
ability to do everything depends on how much you spend at the top and how fast you
can get on the Panoramique. Note that there is no reservation to go back down the AdM
and the queue can sometimes be long.

But you should probably plan on a full day in Chamonix so you have buffer if you want to
squeeze multiple items in.

Posted by
19 posts

Thanks, I decided to get the MultiPass in case we have time to do the train. At checkout, it confirms I have "Tramway du Mont Blanc - Réservation" and "Aiguille du Midi - Réservation compulsory" though I'm not sure what the difference is?

Hopefully they will have a "pass" line instead of just one ticket line for the train, but probably not.

Thanks!

Posted by
981 posts

Tramway du Mont Blanc is a (cog?) railway that runs from towns a bit away from Chamonix
town proper. AdM, is, well,, AdM. So they are just two separate transport mechanisms
that are part of the Multipass. If you don't make a reservation (for either one, actually),
no one will care, but if you decide to ride at the last minute and don't have a reservation,
you may have to wait for the first available opening.

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