French Alps hotels collection

In the French Alps, altitude can be read in the wood. Larch for the chalets below, bare granite for the needles above, and between the two a line of firs that stops short. Chamonix faces Mont Blanc head-on without ever getting used to it; Megève has kept its village lanes and its sleighs; Lake Annecy, lower down, has the colour of a lagoon and the chill of a mountain stream. In winter the snow falls heavy and holds; in summer the high pastures smell of cut hay. One climbs for the light, which changes at every bend, and comes down more slowly than one went up.