The lingua franca of the Tour du Mont Blanc is undoubtedly French. French is spoken in France and Switzerland. Refuges in both countries will also often speak a little English. In Italy, although Italian is the language of choice, refuges will often additionally speak some English or French. As refuges are used to hikers of many nationalities passing through they will make every effort to accommodate you. The polite thing, however, is to attempt to communicate
Language & Money on the Tour du Mont Blanc
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in the refuge's native tongue. So brush up on your French and Italian. To assist you, we've highlighted a few useful phrases here . That said, we met some hikers who spoke only English and were apparently managing to hike their way around the TMB, booking their accommodation en route, with little difficulty.
Most refuges will expect payments in cash and very few if any will accept debit or credit cards. You will consequently need to carry sufficient cash to get you to your next ATM stop.
Since the adoption of the euro by most member states of the EU, currency has become less of an issue when travelling in Europe. Both France and Italy use euro. Even though Switzerland is not part of the EU you will find that almost all Swiss
Since the adoption of the euro by most member states of the EU, currency has become less of an issue when travelling in Europe. Both France and Italy use euro. Even though Switzerland is not part of the EU you will find that almost all Swiss
refuges, hotels and shops en route will quote prices in euro as well as Swiss francs and will accept euro payments. Be aware that when paying in a Swiss shop with euro the exchange rate is unlikely to be advantageous. Given that the shop is having the bear the currency risk this is probably reasonable.
We use the Nationwide Building Society for banking, one of the reasons being that when drawing cash from ATM's abroad they give a competitive exchange rate and don't charge commission.
Consequently we never use bureau de change but instead draw cash from an ATM as soon as we reach Europe. As far as credit cards go, for 30 years we were Barclaycard Visa customers and were very happy with the service. Then in 2006 we had a big family gathering in Paris and on our return discovered £100 of commission charges added by Barclaycard to the visa bill. Barclaycard are not the only credit card company to have this policy. However, the Nationwide
Consequently we never use bureau de change but instead draw cash from an ATM as soon as we reach Europe. As far as credit cards go, for 30 years we were Barclaycard Visa customers and were very happy with the service. Then in 2006 we had a big family gathering in Paris and on our return discovered £100 of commission charges added by Barclaycard to the visa bill. Barclaycard are not the only credit card company to have this policy. However, the Nationwide
Building Society Visa card does not charge commission on foreign purchases and also provides competitive exchange rates, so we switched to their card. If you're UK based and travel in Europe, our advice would be to open an account with Nationwide and get their debit and credit card.
On our arrival in France we took out 300 euro from an ATM. Although Les Houches had an ATM we waited until the next day and our hike to Contamines to take out another 300 euro. In Courmayeur (Italy) we took out an additional 250 euro to ensure we had plenty of cash. At two stops (Switzerland and Italy) we paid for our accommodation by credit card. En route we sometimes bought lunch, had beers/coffee, ate out (Courmayer). Once back in Les Houches, we still had some euro left.
Copyright © 2007 F B Medhurst all rights reserved
Bonjour! - Buon giorno!
On the Tour du Mont Blanc cash is king
Credit/debit cards
Our 2007 cash
