From Mont Blanc to the Savoy lakes, from the legendary Tour de France passes to high-mountain villages, the French Alps offer grandiose landscapes in every season. Cable cars and rack railways make the high mountains accessible to everyone.
This selection brings together the Mont Blanc massif, Lake Annecy and Lake Geneva, the Vanoise and Écrins national parks, the great passes and a few unspoilt villages such as Bonneval-sur-Arc and Saint-Véran, one of the highest in Europe.
At 3,842 m, in the heart of the massif, you rub shoulders with Mont Blanc. An exceptional viewing area, partly carved into the rock, the product of an insane technological feat.
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The largest glacier in France unrolls its tongue of ice over seven kilometres at the foot of the Mont Blanc massif. From Chamonix, the little Montenvers rack railway leads to the edge of this polar landscape, now upset by the rapid retreat of the ice.
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Perched at 2,352 metres in the Aiguilles Rouges massif, Lac Blanc offers one of the most emblematic panoramas of the Alps, facing the Mont Blanc massif.
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Lake Annecy, sometimes nicknamed the "blue lake", is a lake in France located in the Alps, in Haute-Savoie.
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Nicknamed the "Venice of the Alps" for its canals lined with colourful houses, this Savoyard prefecture overlooks the clear waters of its lake.
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The position of Yvoire, on the only promontory of Lake Geneva, aroused the interest of the counts of Savoy, "the doorkeepers of the Alps".
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The Lovagny region, with its famous Gorges du Fier, offers tourists attractions that contrast strangely with the luminous splendours of the shores of Lake Annecy.
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The first national park created in France, in 1963, the Vanoise protects a vast high-mountain massif between Tarentaise and Maurienne. Glaciers, high-altitude lakes and ibex populations make it one of the richest natural sanctuaries of the French Alps.
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At 1,835 metres' altitude in one of the most beautiful glacial ensembles of the French Alps, Bonneval is the highest commune in Maurienne.
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At 2,764 metres, the highest road pass in the Alps, between Val-d'Isère and Bonneval-sur-Arc, on the legendary Route des Grandes Alpes.
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At 2,642 metres, one of the most legendary passes of the Tour de France, between the Maurienne and the Briançonnais, offering a 360° panorama over the glaciers of the Vanoise and the Écrins.
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In the upper part of the village, narrow lanes are lined with sturdy stone houses.
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Between the Hautes-Alpes and the Isère, the Écrins National Park marks the boundary between the southern and northern Alps.
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Reachable by road for barely more than a century, you enter the town made up of several quarters by the road below, and discover the oldest buildings, wooden chalets, fine galleries of hayloft barns, a well, a bread oven.
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Lac de Serre-Ponçon, with an area of 3,000 hectares, is the second largest artificial lake in Europe.
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