Two routes, some fifty kilometres apart
This is what makes the destination unusual, and it is measurable. From the Riviera the shortest way does not run through France: it follows the Italian coast, climbs the Aosta valley and crosses the Mont Blanc tunnel. Route measurement puts it around 470 kilometres. Through France, via Sallanches, you pass 520 kilometres.
The tunnel is not a given. Its operator closed it entirely from 17.00 on 1 September 2025 to 17.00 on 12 December 2025 to renovate the vault: fifteen weeks with no crossing. When that happens the drive reverts to the French route and the day grows by roughly forty-five minutes, minus the cross-border toll.
What that means for a client: the route is decided the day before, against the state of the tunnel, and the fare does not move because of it.
After 10.30 the centre closes
The town hall publishes the rule in one sentence: in the pedestrian zone, car traffic is allowed from 6.00 to 10.30. Residents and rights holders carrying a communal access permit circulate with no time restriction, and hotel servicing is listed among the permitted cases. The detail is referred to the mayoral order of 9 December 2022.
It is the single most operational fact in the valley. A long-distance transfer leaving the coast in the morning arrives at the end of the day: by construction, outside the permitted window. The drop-off therefore happens on the edge of the centre, and that is said before departure, not on arrival.
What to prepare, and what we will not claim
To prepare: the exact address, so we know which side of the perimeter it falls on; the luggage volume, roof box included; and the arrival time you want, which sets the departure time.
What we will not claim, for lack of a readable source: the street-by-street perimeter of the pedestrian zone, the municipal order being a scanned document, and the headroom of the covered car parks, which neither the town hall nor the tourist office publishes. On both points we prefer an open question to a comfortable sentence.