Montenvers and the Mer de Glace

The Montenvers railway leaves from beside Chamonix station and climbs twenty minutes up the mountainside to a terrace at about 1,900 metres, directly above the Mer de Glace — the longest glacier in France, a grey-and-white river of ice curling down from the Grandes Jorasses. Above it the Drus and the Aiguille Verte rise in one uninterrupted wall.

The terrace is the frame and it is unusually easy. There is no walking involved to reach it, the platform is broad, and the composition is right there: the couple on the rail, the glacier below, the granite spires behind. The old hotel and the station buildings in weathered stone give a second, warmer set of backgrounds a few steps away.

Morning light comes over the Aiguilles Rouges behind you and lands on the Drus and the Jorasses opposite, which is the sharpest, cleanest light of the day; by afternoon the far wall is in its own shadow and the glacier goes flat. Autumn gives larch colour on the lower slopes with the ice behind; winter is spectacular and much quieter, but check which services are running.

Practical: the railway has fixed operating seasons and an annual maintenance closure, and it can stop for weather — check the day's timetable and status before planning around it. It gets cold and windy on the terrace even in August. And be honest in the caption: the glacier has retreated a long way and continues to, so the walkways down to the ice cave get longer every few years — treat any description of the descent as something to check for the current season rather than assume.