Chamonix

The valley first appears in 1091, when the Count of the Genevois granted it to the Benedictine abbey of St Michel de la Cluse near Turin, which set up a priory. Its people farmed and raised livestock, quarrelled for centuries with the monks, and in 1786 bought their freedom from the canons who had inherited the priory. For long travellers for pleasure were rare, until two Englishmen, William Windham and Richard Pococke, published an account in 1744 of their visit to the great glacier they called the Mer de Glace. Geneva's scientists followed, among them Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who offered a prize for reaching the top of Mont Blanc. On 8 August 1786 two Chamoniards, the crystal hunter Jacques Balmat and the doctor Michel Paccard, did it; in 1808 Marie Paradis became the first woman on the summit.

Tourism grew quickly. The Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix was formed in 1821 to regulate guiding, the valley passed with the rest of Savoy to France in 1860, and the railway arrived in 1901. The commune became Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, and in 1924 it hosted the first Winter Olympic Games. During the Second World War a children's home here hid several dozen Jewish children from the Nazis.

The cable car to the Aiguille du Midi opened in 1955 and the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Italy in 1965. By the end of the century farming was marginal, and the valley had about 60,000 tourist beds and some five million visitors a year. Floods of the Arve damaged the centre in 1996, and after the 1999 fire in the tunnel the lorry traffic through the valley became a long-running political issue.

Chamonix's identity rests on the mountains and on the people who know them. The Compagnie des Guides, which held a monopoly of guiding until the French state broke it, re-formed as an association of local guides that also served as a friendly society, and in the 20th century many of its members were noted mountaineers. Their history is told in the Alpine Museum and in a mural of guides and climbers in the centre, and the statues of Balmat, de Saussure and Paccard recall the first ascent and an old quarrel over who deserved the credit.

The town is one of the oldest ski resorts in France and has a long racing history: it held the Nordic World Ski Championships in 1937 and still hosts a round of the Alpine Ski World Cup. Summer belongs to climbers, walkers and runners, and the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, which starts and finishes here each August, is one of the most prestigious trail races in the world. The cliffs of the Brévent are known for wingsuit flying.

The old name, Chamôni, is Arpitan, and the final x of the modern spelling marks the stress in that language rather than being pronounced. Savoyard identity, with its food, its separate history and its pride in the valley, sits alongside a very international population of seasonal workers, climbers and skiers.

About 8,700 people lived in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc in 2023; at 245 square kilometres it is the fourth-largest commune in metropolitan France. It takes in 16 villages and hamlets strung along the valley from Le Tour to Les Bossons, and Les Pélerins alone, the birthplace of Jacques Balmat, now houses about a third of the population, much of it in social housing.

Tourism drives almost everything, from the lift company and the guides to hotels, restaurants, shops and ski schools, and the year swings between busy winter and summer seasons and quiet months in spring and autumn. The town is small enough for people to cross on foot, but the valley railway and buses carry workers between the villages, many of whom cannot afford to live in the centre.

Current issues are environmental. Air pollution from lorries heading for the Mont Blanc Tunnel has troubled the valley since 1999, and the municipality has made reducing pollution and renewing the railway priorities. The glaciers that brought the first visitors are shrinking: the Bossons Glacier, which still reached the valley floor in 1900, has retreated since. The valley's flood and avalanche risks shape where building is allowed.

The valley eats the food of Savoy. Fondue savoyarde is the best known: melted cheese and wine served in a communal pot over a small burner, eaten by dipping bread on long forks. Tartiflette, made with potatoes, Reblochon cheese, lardons and onions, is often served as an après-ski meal; it is a modern recipe inspired by péla, a gratin cooked in a long-handled pan. The name probably comes from tartiflâ, the Arpitan word for potato, and the dish has come to stand for Alpine authenticity and conviviality.

Diots are Savoyard pork and vegetable sausages seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg; the favourite way to cook them is to boil them in white wine with garlic and onions, and they are served hot with boiled potatoes, polenta or crozets, small, flat, square pasta made with buckwheat or wheat. Other mountain dishes include bougnettes, made from potato, and rioutes. Restaurants in the centre and in Argentière serve these dishes alongside the international menus that a resort of this size demands.