Our free long-form guides to the villages, towns and lakes of the Alps: where to sleep, which excursions are worth the price, and how each destination changes with the season.
Alpine City Guides
Long-form guides to the villages, towns and lakes of the Alps: where to sleep, what is worth the lift ticket, and what is not.
Each Alpine City Guide is a complete, long-form briefing on a single destination, written to be read before you book rather than after you arrive. They cover the geography that actually affects a stay, the villages and quarters one by one, the mountain excursions with an honest view of which are worth the money, seasonal advice, and itineraries from a single day to a full week. They are free, and they are updated as the lifts, the railways and the seasons change.
Below, the collection organised by country. Each guide links to our detailed accommodation article for the same destination, so you can move from the overview to the specific decision without starting again.
Switzerland
Zermatt Alpine Guide
The car-free village under the Matterhorn, its quarters and its three mountain sectors.
Grindelwald Alpine Guide
Life beneath the Eiger north face: Dorf, Grund, the sunny terrace and First.
Wengen Alpine Guide
A car-free shelf facing the Jungfrau, the Lauberhorn and the Mannlichen ridge walk.
Interlaken Alpine Guide
The town between two lakes, its quarters and the mountain excursions ranked honestly.
St. Moritz Alpine Guide
Dorf, Bad and the Engadin lake villages, Corvatsch, Diavolezza and the Bernina railway.
Davos Alpine Guide
The highest town in the Alps: Platz, Dorf, Klosters, Parsenn and the side valleys.
Verbier Alpine Guide
The sun terrace above the Val de Bagnes, Mont-Fort, Savoleyres and Le Chable.
France
Chamonix Alpine Guide
The valley where alpinism began: the Aiguille du Midi, the Mer de Glace and four separate mountains.
Meribel Alpine Guide
The middle valley of the Trois Vallees: Centre, Mottaret, Mont Vallon and the Saulire.
Val Thorens Alpine Guide
The highest resort in Europe, its levels, Cime Caron and the Peclet glacier.
Morzine Alpine Guide
A market town in the Portes du Soleil, Avoriaz above it and a serious summer season.
Italy
Dolomites Alpine Guide
The valleys, the passes and the light: how the Dolomites fit together.
Val Gardena Alpine Guide
Ortisei, Santa Cristina and Selva, Seceda, the Alpe di Siusi and the Sellaronda.
Courmayeur Alpine Guide
The Italian side of Mont Blanc, the Skyway, Val Ferret and Val Veny.
Lake Como Alpine Guide
Three branches, one lake: Bellagio, Varenna, the villas and the ferry network.
Lake Maggiore Alpine Guide
Two countries, one long lake: the Borromean Islands, the gardens and the Swiss shore.
Germany
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Alpine Guide
Two towns, one name, and three ways up the Zugspitze.
How these guides are built
Every guide follows the same structure, because the questions a traveller asks about Zermatt are the questions they ask about Courmayeur. We open with the geography, because in the Alps the shape of a valley determines almost everything else: where the sun falls in February, how long the walk from the lift is, whether the village has an evening of its own or empties at six. We then take the destination apart area by area, and we say plainly which areas suit which kind of stay rather than describing all of them favourably.
The section we spend most time on is the one ranking the mountain excursions. Cable cars in the Alps are expensive and weather-dependent, and the difference between a clear morning and a cloudy afternoon on the same lift is the difference between the best day of a trip and an expensive white room. We say which excursions justify their price, which ones to keep flexible, and which quieter alternatives are consistently overlooked. Where an attraction is genuinely busy at certain hours, we say so and give the hour to go instead.
The seasonal advice is deliberately specific. Alpine destinations do not have a high season and a low season so much as two separate seasons with closure periods between them, and a guide that fails to mention that lifts and hotels shut for several weeks in May and November is not much use to anyone planning a trip. Each guide also closes with itineraries at three lengths, because the right plan for one day is not a compressed version of the right plan for a week.
What we do not do is invent numbers. Prices move, timetables change and snow depths are not something a guide written months in advance can honestly forecast. Where a figure matters, we point you to the source that keeps it current rather than printing a number that will be wrong by the time you read it. You can read more about our approach on our methodology page, and about who writes these guides on our about page.
Which guide should you start with?
If it is a first trip to the Alps and you want the classic image, start with Zermatt, Grindelwald or Wengen: three villages under three of the most recognisable mountain faces in Europe, all reachable entirely by train. If you are travelling in summer and want water rather than snow, the Lake Como and Lake Maggiore guides cover the pre-alpine lakes, their islands and their gardens. If you are planning a ski week and the size of the area matters more than the charm of the village, read Meribel, Val Thorens and Verbier together and decide what you are willing to trade. And if you want the mountains without the resort machinery, the Val Gardena, Courmayeur and Garmisch-Partenkirchen guides describe places that were towns and valleys long before they were destinations.