Appartements de l'Héliopic ★★★★

Four apartments, not a residence

The Appartements de l'Heliopic are four independent units set beside the four-star Heliopic Hotel and Spa, in the centre of Chamonix. That number matters: this is not a block of interchangeable rentals but a handful of separate homes, each decorated differently in a retro-chic mountain register, with vintage pieces and materials that belong to the valley. Capacity runs from two guests to seven, which covers a couple on a climbing week and a family travelling with children.

Named after the massif

Each apartment carries the name of a landmark above Chamonix: Nid d'Aigle, the terminus of the Mont Blanc tramway; Le Gouter, the refuge on the classic route to the summit; Cosmiques, the hut below the Aiguille du Midi; and Lac Blanc, the mirror lake in the Aiguilles Rouges that returns the whole massif on a still morning. The naming is not decoration. It maps out the four excursions most visitors come here to make.

A kitchen, a cellar and room to settle in

Every apartment has a properly fitted kitchen with oven, dishwasher, fridge and microwave, its own wine cellar and a ski room. Some open onto a private terrace with a hot tub, others onto a balcony facing Mont Blanc. Taken together these are the things that turn a few nights into a proper base: you can shop at the Chamonix market, cook after a long day on the glacier and dry your equipment without carrying it through a lobby.

The spa next door

Guests have full access to the neighbouring hotel's spa, which is on a scale rarely attached to four apartments. It holds a heated indoor pool, hammams, a sauna, a jacuzzi, an ice grotto and a cold bath, alongside treatment rooms for massages. The hot and cold sequence is the reason to book it: after a day of altitude, it does more for tired legs than any amount of sitting still.

A hundred and fifty metres from the Aiguille du Midi

The address sits in the middle of Chamonix, a hundred and fifty metres from the Aiguille du Midi cable car, the lift that opens the high mountain and the descent of the Vallee Blanche. The town's restaurants, guide offices and equipment shops are all within walking distance, and the train station is close enough to reach the rest of the valley without a car. In summer the same door leads to the trails of the Aiguilles Rouges and the Mont Blanc tramway.

Why we selected it

We chose these apartments because they solve a problem that hotels in Chamonix rarely solve well. Independent space, a kitchen and a terrace, without giving up the spa, the ski room and the service of a four-star house next door, and with the valley's most important lift a short walk away. For a family or a group of friends spending a week in the Mont Blanc valley, it is the most practical premium address we found.