‘It sounds like you’re having an Ann Summers party up there,’ a male traveller called, as our group erupted into girlish hysterics on the viewing terrace of Punta Helbronner, a mountain in the Mont Blanc massif. Unfortunately for him there was no lingerie in sight; instead our shrieks had been brought on by the threat of a lightning storm hitting us at 3,462 metres up. As my hair stood on end and my phone crackled, a guide ushered us back to the cable car, part of the new Mont Blanc skyway which offers the idler Alpine adventurer an easy way to get close to Europe’s largest peak.
Still, there’s something alluring about a storm in the Alps, especially when the lightning-lit mountain peaks can be viewed from the safe confines of a rotating carriage. After a descent over ragged rocks, glimpses of greenery and patches of snow back to the base, we embarked on the final leg of our journey to La Thuile, deep in the Aosta Valley.
This area, Italy’s smallest region, boasts some of the Alps’ highest peaks and is steeped in Roman history with the Arco di Augusto and the remains of a Roman theatre lying in Aosta’s 2,000-year-old centre.
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