We are totally locked into our months long trip through Provence, Villefranche sur mer, Briançon, Chamonix, Annecy, Lyon.
Last to book is Chamonix but first hotels I’ve tried from RS book, say closed or dates unavailable. Are we making a mistake to try to go there this early in the season? Any hotel recommendations?
Any other ideas for 3 nights in that region if Chamonix is out? Thanks.
https://www.chamonix.com/snow-report,89,en.html
The ski areas themselves seem to close between mid April - early May. Many ski area lodgings (in US and Europe) close for several weeks to a month to give owners/staff a vacation before "summer tourists" arrive. IME RS tends to pick the lower key/more homey places which may have this issue.
Booking.com shows 420 properties available for May 18-21, 2020 and 56 have "awesome" ratings. Pick a hotel in your desired rating / price range / area in which you are interested, and click on it - then pick the show map view button... The map will show the prices of all of the properties on the map for your comparison.
Have fun!
Thank you. I was raised in Rocky Mt. ski resorts, and they were pretty dreary between seasons. Hence my question whether we will be able to find hiking and the town feeling mostly open for business. Or if we should shift gears and loop someplace else?
It may be that they don't have 2020 prices yet and just aren't taking reservations yet. To test this, try booking for June. If you get the same message, then it's too early. If you can book for June, find a Plan B.
I visited in mid September. I picked September because it's the most likely time to get clear weather to view Mt. Blanc. I had some nice weather but the first day was snow and it closed all the higher trails. I had to substitute lower trails for hiking.
I wouldn't plan hiking until July (you might get lucky in mid June) unless it's been a particularly light snow year.
The Aiguille du Midi should be open but enjoying it depends on the daily weather. It's pretty pricey. I'm not sure when the gondola to Helbronner opens back up? I saw it was closed but haven't seen anything since.
Burgundy is beautiful and not too far from Lyon. You could easily spend a few days in that area. I was there in early May and wished I had waited another month before visiting. The good part was there were very light crowds other than in Beune and Dijon. The bad part was it was still cold, the grape vines were barely growing and many restaurant choices in smaller towns hadn't opened yet.
I stayed here and enjoyed it: https://www.vallee-blanche.com/en/hotel.html
It was cool to have a room right on the rushing alpine river (like, literally, 3 feet away).
I was there in a different "mid season" --- early October. While the town was pretty dead (and I was disappointed that the alpine slide was not open on the days I was there) it was still breathtaking to look up and see Mont Blanc and the surrounding magnificent alps. One thing that was super weird was the hotel I booked online turned out to be half closed or something -- there was no proper front desk person and it seemed like I was the only guest there. When a loud beeping alarm started going off in the middle of the night, I was forced to trek down the street to another hotel so I could get some sleep! Not sure how you could avoid that but something to sniff out when making reservations / reading reviews.
I rented a very nice, brand new chalet in Les Houches , a tiny commune of Chamonix, a few years back. I got a really inexpensive rate, for just about that same dates.The agent told me that in 2 weeks I would have paid double the price, & 3-4 weeks earlier it would have been triple.
