French Alpine villas for a few days in August

[blahblonk]

Does anyone have recommendations for towns/villages in France where we could do some gentle-ish walking, but also have restaurants within easy reach ? Looking at the Alps within reach of Lyon but would go anywhere. We know France pretty well but not this region. Plenty of cheap accomodation options but finding it difficult to avoid ski resorts.

Anyone been to a ski village in the summer, what’s it like?

Briancon was mentioned on another post.

We love going skiing in morzine but we also had a great summer holiday there. There are lots of apartments. Plenty of restaurants. There is a big outdoor pool. Plus you can do lots of activities. There is a lake nearby for swimming and kayaking. We also went white water rafting. There are lots of mountain bikers but plenty of lifts open if you want to get up the mountain and go hiking.

St Gervais is a pretty town with restaurants and bars, nice walking and handy for the whole Chamonix Valley plus Courmayeur via the Mont Blanc tunnel. Recommend hiring a car unless you really don’t want to stray far.

Thanks!

Thank you!

We had a lovely time last year in a hamlet near Morzine. There was so many walking (and running) trails. Some gentle/flat ones along the river. The outdoor pool in Morzine is fab. We went to the lake nearby in Les Gets. Kids did mountain biking down the ski slopes. Also did white water rafting. Lots of restaurants in Morzine.

Chamonix valley. If you want gentler walks use the cable cars to go up and down and walk along between them

Thanks

We've done lots of summer holidays just over the border from Morzine and Les Gets, on the Swiss side. So much to do in Alpine ski villages in the summer, no need to avoid them. We spent a lot of time using cable cars and chair lifts to explore all over the mountains, walk a bit and eat in the mountain restaurants.

There are some wonderful outdoor thermal pools/spas and so many perfect villages to explore. If you go at the start of August, you could pop to Switzerland for Swiss national day - there's lots going on. You could also explore Lac Léman which is great on a sunny day.

French ski villages in summer are excellent. Can highly recommend Tignes. Was there for a long weekend last August and was blown away by the scenery, and their activites on the Tignes Card are fantastic.

The good thing about ski resorts is that they tend to have the lifts running in the summer so you can get high and then hike from there if you don’t want to yomp up a massive hill. Morzine/ Les Gets already suggested and I’d second that. Chamonix as well but it gets v v busy. There are some ski resorts that are not that nice in summer as there’s been a fair bit of bulldozing to create the village runs so in summer it’s just kind of scarred. Val d’isere is a bit like that, or at least used to be. As a rule of thumb avoid the high purpose built ski resorts.

Thanks for all these v useful replies. Was slightly struggling to understand the out of season ski resort thing, so all very helpful. And hasn’t considered that cable cars also run in summer…Now to actually get around to booking something!

We’re going to Morzine this summer but we went to morillon before covid which was fab.

We’ve done a few ski resorts in the summer and it’s been great. Very hot, need sunscreen as you’re so high, cooler evenings.

Try Samoens.