Savoie and Mont Blanc in 5 days

Two cable car sections from Chamonix to 3,842 m, the second with no pylon at all, to a close view of Mont Blanc.

A 1908 rack railway to the largest glacier in France; markers on the rock down to the ice cave show how far it has shrunk.

A farming village turned chic resort in the 1920s, with cobbled streets, an onion-domed church, horse-drawn carriages and summer hiking facing Mont Blanc.

Watch Beaufort cheese being made in the morning, then the cellars where 40 kg wheels are rubbed and turned for at least five months.

A winding road from Beaufort past the 150-metre Roselend dam and its turquoise lake, up to the 1,967-metre pass with a view of Mont Blanc.

A hike above Pralognan to a lake crossed on stepping stones below the Grande Casse, then on to the Col de la Vanoise hut.

Twenty minutes from Chambéry, an emerald lake among the warmest in the Alps, closed to petrol motorboats since 1976 and made for swimming and canoeing.

On the shore of Lac du Bourget, burial place of the counts and dukes of Savoy and of the last king and queen of Italy.