Tour du Mont Blanc

What follows is a circle, and the shape of the week comes from the passes. Two nights in Chamonix come first, so there is time to meet the guide, sort out boots, and spend a loose day at valley altitude before anything is asked of your legs (the Aiguille du Midi cable car is there if the sky is clear). The walking starts on day three and it starts with the longest day, six to seven hours over the Col de Tricot while you are freshest. After that each pass is a border. Col de la Seigne into Italy on day five. The Grand Col Ferret into Switzerland on day seven. Col du Balme back into France on day nine, with Chamonix laid out below the whole way down. Courmayeur sits at the halfway mark with two nights and a full day off, which is where a rest day belongs.

Every night is a hotel with a proper bed and breakfast the next morning, and no refuge dormitories anywhere on the route. The two Chamonix stays bookend the trip at the same family-run house, a Savoyard lodge takes the night in Les Contamines, and there is a lakeside spa above Champex for the Swiss night. Where the official trail follows a road, a short transfer skips it, so the hours on foot are the good ones. The guide chooses the line each morning by the weather: the lower route out of Les Houches if the cloud is down, the Col du Fenêtre variant on day eight only in a settled high-summer spell. Should the day off in Courmayeur turn into an afternoon at the Pré-Saint-Didier thermal baths, or the Col du Balme ask for a longer pause at the refuge on the Swiss side, the itinerary was built expecting it.