Let me start by saying I have never been skiing, never so much as had a ski lesson. I am inept at skiing. However, I love the apres ski vibe, the idea of going up in the mountains and seeing the Alps, that has always been something I have loved but figured was a pipe dream if I weren’t to actually learn to ski. Then came our trip to Geneva, when we realised just how close the French Alps were to Switzerland, and when we also found out we could do a day trip from central Geneva to Chamonix Mont Blanc in the French Alps for just £113 return for the two of us. It was a no brainer to be honest and I 100% recommend it to others, regardless of whether you ski or not.
We booked direct with the travel agent, as our hotel were being a bit useless and online was just not playing ball for us. You can pay more, you can pay less. I was happy with what we paid and the security we had of booking in person direct. The coach left Geneva at 10.30am, although there was also a coach at 8.30am, and we could have got a coach back at either 2.30pm or 6.30pm but we chose to come back at 5.15pm, which I think was the perfect amount of time. We could have kept ourselves occupied for longer, but it would have cost us more money, and we didn’t need it. However, if you do plan on skiing or exploring further into the mountains, you should factor in more time for sure.
We didn’t really know what to do when we arrived as we hadn’t researched too much. We knew we weren’t fussed about going up in the cable cars as I am claustrophobic and Ed is scared of heights, so instead we took it slowly and decided to explore and then make a plan. We ended up at Aux Petits Gourmand where we had the nicest quiche and chocolate dessert, as well as a cheeky glass of wine and cup of coffee. The sun was shining and it was heaven.
After we had finished, we continued to walk around exploring, and we came upon the church. It was so lovely to for once not have a plan or agenda. All I really wanted to do was to take some photos with the mountains as the backdrop and potentially eat pizza for dinner, that was it. I am usually a big planner, I will decide what we are going to do down to the last minute so I think we were both so pleased to just rest and enjoy the moment.
We headed up to where the cable cars went up the mountain and took some photos and video clips. It was absolutely beautiful and I can imagine it would be totally epic to go up in the cable cars, but it just wasn’t worth it for us. We did stand at the starter slope for a bit though and I do want to try our skiing at some point as it looks so fun, and I want to know if it is’ for me or not.
We went back down and looked around a little bit more before heading to Irish coffee for some late lunch. We shared a pizza and had a cocktail and oh my word the pizza was immense! I would have had another one but I decided I wanted a crepe more, it was just as good as I imagined. The backdrop was pretty insane too.
After we had our pizza and cocktails we had around an hour or so left to go until the coach came back so we continued walking around and went in a couple of souvenir shops to get something for the kids. We also found the train station, where you can get a train further into the mountains. I would potentially do this if we headed back another time, but I was pretty happy with what we ended up doing during our time there.
I would really recommend a visit to anybody going to Geneva or nearby. The day trip is really reasonably priced and it was such a wonderful experience with so many amazing memories and photos from the day. I am really happy we made the decision to go.
