Grenoble/French alps

[jen337]

I'm planning a trip to the French alps with Dd (10). We’d like to be close to a city and the mountains to do some mild hiking.
Should we:
a) stay in the city and travel out for walks, or
b) stay in the mountains and travel in to visit the city?

I’m leaning towards a) as there will be more and cheaper food options in the city, however dd goes to bed/wakes up early so the quiet of the mountains might be nice.

I don’t fancy car hire/driving over there, but would do if it’s a must, is the public transport any good? I assume travelling between places in the mountains is bus is tricky and time consuming?

At the moment Grenoble, but are there any other areas I should consider?

Grenoble is a nice city, but if you’re not planning on driving you’ll find connections/public transport tricky. Don’t go to and stay somewhere like Val d’Isère which will be pricey… but look at Briancon. Interesting town near the Italian border with loads to do in the summer. I stayed there camping when I was 10… my most memorable holiday. 40 odd years later we go to the area most summers (staying about 40 mins drive south in a small town) and it’s wonderful.

Meant to say you can get to Briancon on the train and you’d manage there without a car although I’d prefer to have one. My non driving son stayed in embrun down the valley last year, got (free) bus to the lake, you can pay a few euros to get bus to local ski resorts for walking or other activities eg zip wires, go ape, or hire bikes.

You could stay to the south of Lake Geneva: Evian, Thonon-Les-Bains etc. There are trains and water taxis into Geneva and very good bus links to the Portes du Soleil area (Les Gets, Morzine, Montriond).

Annex is a beautiful town.

*Annecy

Thanks for the ideas, given it’s our first visit to the region I’m thinking to try a little tour, say fly in/out of Geneva then 3 nights in Morzine, 3 nights in Annecy, 3 in Grenoble. Is this reasonable or too many stops or too much/too little time in any places? And going by public transport between the stops?

@jen337 did you book your roadtrip op? X

yes! we did, pretty much as planned above, 10 days, morzine > annecy > Grenoble. The first two were fantastic, cable cars, mountains, walking, swimming, cycling, canoeing, beautiful scenery, good food. Weather was from beautiful to too hot (30+). Free buses around the alpine villages and in annecy, loads of free activities around Morzine. Grenoble was a let down compared to the others, could have left that off and just done a week, kids were flagging by then and wasn’t enough there to keep them interested. Travel between the cities by bus or train wasn’t too bad and reasonably priced, but a little time consuming.

@jen337 thank you that’s great to know. Did you not hire a car then? How did you get from the airport to Morzine and across to affect please

No, we flew to Geneva, then took a bus to Morzine (with ‘Alpy Transfers’). From Morzine to Annecy we had to take the bus back to Geneva airport then a second bus to annecy (different company can’t remember the name). That was the longest day of travel, roughly 6 hours I think including some waiting due to the bus times. Annecy to Grenoble and Grenoble back to Geneva airport very pleasant journey by train, plenty throughout the day and inexpensive.