|
|
***
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Europa |
| World Emotions |
|
French Emotions ( Baci Baiser alla Francese) |
German Emotions (Bacio Kuss alla Tedesca) |
English Emotions |
Spanish Emotions ( Un Beso in Spagna) |
|
Italian Emotions (Baci Italiani ) |
| Francia |
| Bordeaux | Chamonix | Fontainbleau | |
| Paris | Cannes | Corsica | Grenoble |
| Lione | Strasburgo | Normandia | Champagne |
| Lehavre | Reunion | Biarritz | Dordogna |
| Versailles | Lorena |
| France Litterature |
French Emotions ( Baci Baiser alla Francese) |
Mercatini di Natale |
|
| Thanks to
http://www.world66.com/ *********************The content is published under a creative commons licence : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0 / ). |
| Chamonix Travel Guide Edit This The best resource for sights, hotels, restaurants, bars, what to do and see Winter at Chalet La Foret Winter at Chalet La Foret Chalet la Foret Chamonix has recently become a popular skiing resort. The location at the foot of the Mont Blanc makes it one of the most attractive places to go for a winter holiday. The best thing about Chamonix is that it really is a town. Many other French winter sport places are just a bunch of high rise buildings close to the skiing lifts, but here you find a cosy center with nice bars, restaurants and cafes. The slope of the Mont Blanc is very spectacular. You get a lovely view over the valley and the glacier is of extraterrestial beauty. The bad thing about Chamonix is that the slopes are divide in three areas and you can't ski from one to the other. You need to take a bus which is a drag. There are 7 major glaciers and several minor ones in the Chamonix valley. The Mer de Glace (sea of ice) is the second largest glacier in the Alps (the largest being the Aletsch Glacier, Switzerland). It is estimated to contain approx 4000 million cubic metres of frozen water; it is 12k long and varies in width from 700 - 1950m. The average depth of the ice is 240m with a maximum 420m just down stream of the glacier du Geant . The Mer de Glace moves forward 90m per year, or 1cm per hour. During the 20th century all alpine glaciers receded. The Mer de Glace receded 7.5m every year on average. ________Sights Edit This Sights exist in such profusion around here that it is almost an impertinence to choose particular ones - however there are two trips from Chamonix which may merit special attention. One is the trip to the Mer de Glace [known to generations of Alpine tourists as the Murder Glass]. This involves travel first to Montenvers in a little train a hundred years old and then the cable-car up to the frozen sea of ice. http://www.compagniedumontblanc.fr/en/montenvers/index.html The second is an amazing trip which goes in three [four?] stages from France to Italy. This can be done in either direction but the stretch between Chamonix and Courmayeur in Italy has to be done by bus through the Mont Blanc Tunnel. If you are doing this first, you get the cable car to the Pointe Helbrunner. Form here you take a slow lift in small cars for four people across the Alps, over massive cevasses, to the Aiguille de Midi, back in France. Form there a cable descends in two stages to Chamonix. Contributors September 13, 2005 change by giorgio November 10, 2004 new by davidx [Add Sight] Mount Blanc Edit This The highest mountain in Europe, 4807 m! type: Hotspots World66 rating: [rate it] _________History Edit This The valley is first heard of about 1091 , when it was granted by the count of the Genevois to the great Benedictine house of St Michel de la Cluse , near Turin , which by the early 13th century established a priory there. But in 1786 the inhabitants bought their freedom from the canons of Sallanches , to whom the priory had been transferred in 1519 . In 1530 the inhabitants obtained from the count of the Genevois the privilege of holding two fairs a year, while the valley was often visited by the civil officials and by the bishops of Geneva (first recorded visit in 1411 , while St Francis de Sales came there in 1606 ). But travellers for pleasure were long rare. The first party to publish (1744) an account of their visit was that of Dr R. Pococke , Mr W. Windham and other Englishmen who visited the Mer de Glace in 1741 . In 1742 came P. Martel and several other Genevese, in 1760 H.B. de Saussure , and rather later Marc Th. Bourrit . The growth of tourism in the early 19th century led to the formation of the Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix in 1821 , to regulate access to the mountain slopes (which were communally or co-operatively owned), and this association held a monopoly of guiding from the town until it was broken by French government action in 1892 ; thereafter guides were required to hold a diploma issued by a commission dominated by civil servants and members of the French Alpine Club rather than local residents. From the late 19th century on, tourist development was dominated by national and international initiatives rather than local entrepreneurs, though the local community was increasingly dependent upon and active in the tourist industry. The commune successfully lobbied to change its name from Chamonix to Chamonix-Mont-Blanc in 1916 . However, following the loss of its monopoly, the Compagnie reformed as an association of local guides, and retained an important role in local society; it provided the services of a friendly society to its members, and in the 20th century many of them were noted mountaineers and popularisers of mountain tourism, for example the novelist Roger Frison-Roche , the first member of the Compagnie not to be born in Chamonix. The holding of the first Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix in 1924 further raised Chamonix 's profile as an international tourist destination. By the 1960s, agriculture had been reduced to a marginal activity, while the number of tourist beds available rose to around 60,000 by the end of the 20th century, with about 5 million visitors a year. |