A day off, chill vibes

Published on 09/01/2026

A Special Feature on the Valley’s Museums: What You Don’t Know Yet…

The Crystal Museum at Espace Tairraz: a real gem!

1,800 treasures from five continents, and just as many anecdotes to impress your friends over drinks.

Mountaineering in the Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Valley and the search for precious minerals are inextricably linked.
Many gemstones are crystals, but not all crystals are gemstones.
The largest gold nugget ever found weighed 72 kg, and the Crystal Museum houses one of only three replicas in the world.
The smoky hue of quartz from the Mont Blanc massif comes from the radioactivity it contains.
Opal is an amorphous mineral, which does not mean it is soft, but rather that its atoms are not arranged in any particular order.

Do you find yourselves cramped, just the two of you, in your studio cabin?

Wait until you visit the traditional three-room family home recreated at the Mountain Museum.

The entrance was shared by people… and their animals.
Just one window facing the valley to minimize heat loss—energy efficiency ahead of its time.
The parents’ bed had a pull-out drawer to store their belongings and let their children sleep there.
Because a lame cow means a mountain of worries, each one had her own “hoof care kit.”
The wooden bucket with a metal handle, just as handy for carrying milk as it was for the monthly bath.

Experience history as if you were there… in 1924.

The exhibition “Chamonix 1924 – The Invention of the Winter Olympics” recounts the wild week when the valley became the center of the world.

The very first Winter Olympic Games weren’t yet called that: they were known as the “International Winter Sports Week.”
In 1924, Chamonix built a 36,000 m² ice rink, a bobsled track in the Pèlerins Forest, and a ski jump at Les Bossons—all in just a few months!
Chamonix photographer Auguste Couttet captured these Games with incredible photographs, now preserved in the Gay-Couttet collection (12,000 mountain photos spanning a century).
Fun fact: The first Winter Olympic gold medal was won by an American athlete in… speed skating!