Journey
The Alpine Grand Tour
Six valleys, four countries, one mountain range
17 days · 6 stops · 4 countries · 509 km in a straight line
The Alps are a single range and five nationalities, and the way to feel that is to cross them slowly by train and cable car rather than fly over. This route runs west to east from Mont Blanc to the Dolomites, staying high, and every leg is on a scheduled public service. Book the mountain huts before you book the hotels.
The route, in order
Every hop is a straight-line distance between two coordinates. This atlas holds no road and no rail geometry, so that number is a floor on the leg and never the leg — Chamonix to Zermatt is 69 km here and about 170 on the ground, round a mountain range. It is here for the scale of the thing, not for planning a day.
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1 Days 1–3 3 nights
Chamonix France
Under the highest mountain in western Europe, where alpinism was invented.
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2 Days 4–6 3 nights
↳ 69 km from Chamonix in a straight line
Zermatt Switzerland
Car-free, under the Matterhorn, and reached by a rack railway from the valley.
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3 Days 7–9 3 nights
↳ 65 km from Zermatt in a straight line
Lauterbrunnen Switzerland
Seventy-two waterfalls, cliff-shelf villages, and the Eiger across the valley.
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4 Days 10–11 2 nights
↳ 148 km from Lauterbrunnen in a straight line
St. Moritz & the Engadin Switzerland
East over the passes to the Engadin: sgraffito villages and 322 days of sun.
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5 Days 12–13 2 nights
↳ 146 km from St. Moritz & the Engadin in a straight line
Innsbruck Austria
The Bernina and the Arlberg deliver you to a city with a 2,300-metre mountain at the tram stop.
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6 Days 14–16 3 nights
↳ 81 km from Innsbruck in a straight line
Ortisei & the Dolomites Italy
South into the Dolomites and Ladin-speaking valleys, for the pink light on limestone at dawn.
The record
- Length
- 17 days
- From / to
- Chamonix → Ortisei & the Dolomites
- Countries
- France → Switzerland → Austria → Italy
- Straight-line distance
- 509 km, stop to stop
- Difficulty
- demanding
- Transport
- rail, cable car, postbus
- Accommodation
- mixed
- Budget shape
- high
- Curated by
- EuropeDoor editorial
- Estimated cost
- about €4,510 per person
- Months that work
- June, July, August, September
Experiences along the way
Down to the Mer de Glace
The steps to the ice are signed with the year the glacier reached each level; the descent is a chronology as much as a walk.
The North Face trail from Mürren
Two hours on a balcony path with the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau directly across the valley the whole way.
The Bernina line to Tirano
From glacier to palm trees in four hours, over the Landwasser viaduct and around the Brusio spiral — booked as a normal train, not a tour.
City to summit in twenty minutes
Tram, funicular and two cable cars take you from a café table to 2,256 metres of exposed ridge; take a jacket you would not think you needed.
A night in a rifugio
Dinner at seven, lights out at ten, and the Enrosadira — the pink glow on the rock at dawn — from the door.
What you will be eating
- France — Bread bought twice a day, because it is worth nothing by evening
- Switzerland — Cheese in its own right — Gruyère, Appenzeller, raclette scraped off the wheel
- Austria — Wiener Schnitzel, veal and beaten thin, with potato salad
- Italy — Pasta by region — trofie in Liguria, orecchiette in Puglia, carbonara only in Rome
What to pack
- Boots with ankle support and a broken-in sole
- Layers, and a hat, even in August
- Cash for mountain huts, which often take nothing else
- Sun cream — snow at altitude burns
What this estimate covers
About €4,510 per person: 16 nights at the high daily band for each country on the route, plus a distance-based transport figure between stops, plus 12%. It excludes getting to the start and home from the end, and it is planning arithmetic from published bands rather than a quote. How these numbers are made →