Chamonix-Mont-Blanc

Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is a commune in Haute-Savoie, in the French Alps immediately north of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in western Europe. It lies between the Aiguilles Rouges and the Aiguille du Midi and borders both Switzerland and Italy. It hosted the first Winter Olympics in 1924, and has been a mountaineering town far longer than that. The valley floor is a working town rather than a resort village, and the cable cars mean the high ground is reachable without a climb, though what they reach is serious terrain in any season.