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This was the view from our ground floor apartment for the week. Mont Blanc (although not quite including the summit, that's behind these peaks) and accompanying glacier.

Saturday morning, and our first expedition is to climb a nearby mountain. This one, as it turned out.

The bottom of the cable car going to Plan Praz.

The cable car took us part of the way up the mountain, to a second cable car. We chose to walk from here.

Martyn, Anna and Tom at Plan Praz. You can see the second cable car in the background. Vicki was either jogging at this point or had stayed behind because she wasn't feeling well. It wasn't clear.

View down to the cable car station, where we walked from. See the amazing scenery in the background? The photo doesn't do it justice. Not even close.

Tom and the mountain. The cable car station at the very top can just be seen, which was where we were heading.

Snow! There were great swathes of the stuff randomly scattered across the mountaintop, which wasn't obviously melting, yet it was still shorts and Tshirt weather.

Of course, if you've got snow, you've got to try sliding on it. Martyn shows us his skillz.

Anna, Tom and Martyn at the top of a small peak near to the top. From here we actually had to descend quite a bit before beginning our climb to the summit.

Coming down was a bit of a scramble. Notice that the terrain has gone from dirt path, to snow, to rocky. This mountain had it all.

Along the way we encountered a group of these fellas. Not sure exactly what they were, but they seemed reasonably indifferent to us and had climbing skills that would put most people to shame.

Tom tries a bit of snow climbing. Beside him, carved mysteriously into the ancient ice, we discovered the words 'Vicki was here'. What could it mean?

Getting closer to the summit, the scrambling got tougher again, but someone had kindly installed some ladders, and a couple of metal pegs. Not in the other places where you practically had to rock climb to make progress, just here. A little strange. This is actually a lot higher than it looks.

Martyn and Anna near the top. This was the nicest but least silly of the three photos I took.

Tom preferred to look cool.

The cable car station almost literally at the summit. This was the one we could see earlier but chose not to ride.

The view from the very top. Again my camera fails to capture how spectacular this was, and instead the others look like they're standing in front of a painting.

Chamonix from the summit. Mont Blanc is off to the right of the picture.

More huge chunks of snow on the climb down, which was a different route from the way up. Once more Tommy does some climbing.

Walking down the mountain.

A view of Chamonix during the descent.

During the descent the scenery once again changed dramatically - from jagged bare rock interspersed with snow, to pleasantly winding path down a steep slope through flowery undergrowth. It was a bit like walking down through someone's garden.

After the steep garden-esque bit the path entered some pleasant woodland. By this time we'd realised we'd underestimated the distance (we didn't get back til 8pm) but still found time for Anna to hide in a tree stump.

Day two, Sunday. There's still no sign of Vicki for some reason, so we decide to go mountain biking.

Stopping under a tree for lunch - French bread and cheese. And peanut flavoured crisps, which turned out to not be as bad as everyone said.

Martyn, and scenery. I'm going to stop pointing it out, because it was amazing, and it was always all around us.

Anna action shot.

Martyn action shot. This was just before a really tricky but fun uphill section of path covered in tree roots (you can see some in the background already).

Most of the rest of the ride was far too much fun to stop for photos. This was taken from a bridge almost back in Chamonix.

The inside of our apartment, that evening. I haven't got many pictures of it. The place was really nice - plenty of sofas, dishwasher, big screen TV with surround sound (not that we watched it much). Bit lacking in the oven department, though.

Day three, Monday, and suddenly Vicki had re-appeared, so we went rock climbing.

Vicki climbing. Starting from the right, we gradually moved the climb further to the left, where it got increasingly difficult.

Tommy proves that he is not only a climber of snow.

Day four, Tuesday. Mont Blanc looked like this that morning. It was spectacular.

Today we did Via Ferata. If you're not familiar with this, look it up. Essentially it's rock climbing but with a safety line and occasional assistance, in the form of rungs hammered into the cliff wall.

Vicki carefully and sensibly demonstrates correct safety equipment techniques.

Because you're clipped on to a steel cable at all times, scaling massive cliffs suddenly becomes a lot less intimidating and probably easier. At some points during this we were on entirely vertical cliff faces hundreds of feet up. This is near the start, though.

Did I mention it wasn't all rock climbing? This is the bridge. It went over a drop of about a hundred feet onto solid rock. It was fun.

Look carefully at this photo. See the trees in the background? Those are really big trees. We're very high up here. Perspective is a weird thing.

Vicki just before the bridge.

Anna demonstrates the bit just after the bridge. There was a bit of an overhang, with a plank for you to stand on, after which was another bridge, which consisted this time of only two cables.

What I found particularly surprising about this whole route was that there was no organisation policing it - walk up the hill a bit, and it was just there. We just hired a bit of kit and went ourselves. If this was England there'd be instructors and fences and safety nets and rules.

Also, the weather that day, like most of the days that week, was beautiful.

Martyn and Anna pose for the camera.

Tommy does his own kind of posing. As you can see, it's all quite safe, as long as you remember to keep at least one safety line clipped on at all times. And once you're up there it's not something you're likely to forget.

More posing.

We all really enjoyed this afternoon. It only took an hour or so, but that was probably long enough, any longer and your arms start to get a bit tired.

Even though we were really high up on a cliff face where holding on with both hands was generally the best option, I've still come away with a surprisingly large number of photos.

Finally I manage a picture that better conveys how high up we were. Also you can see more clearly the rungs fixed into the rock to help with climbing, as well as one of several wooden planks that you had to walk across.

The triumphant team, post climb. The route went along and then up to the cliff top, from where we walked back down and around to the carpark again.

Day five, glacier. This is Le Tour, at the end of the Chamonix valley. You can just make out the cable car we rode part of the way up on.

Stopping for a rest on the climb up.

Once more we'd managed to plan a fairly epic climb. The glacier is round the side of this hill.

Our first look at the glacier. It was utterly huge, and still a long way away.

Martyn helps to demonstrate how high up we are.

Getting closer to the glacier, and it's getting a bit snowier. In fact a lot snowier.

Sadly, this was as close as we managed to get. From here on it looked increasingly treacherous, and we only had a few hours left to make it back to the cablecar before it would shut.

Close up on the glacier. There's really nothing here to indicate scale, but trust me, it was huge.

Tommy and Martyn contemplate the view. Which was awesome.

When we got back from our expedition we found this fella occupying our grill, quite reluctant to leave. Top holiday tip - if your accommodation doesn't have a barbeque, buy one. Then use it most nights.

Proof that I managed to do the puzzle.

Day six. Today started a little more leisurely than most of our other days, with a late breakfast followed by some rounds of Carcassonne, with devious farm stealer Martyn. Watch him.

After deliberately not having any lunch, we made our way to our appointment at the cable car station. Vicki made me promise not to put the photo in of her in the cable car, so this is her waiting for it instead.

Have you guessed today's activity yet? Those of you looking at this photo and thinking mountaintop yoga are completely wrong.

Ready, set...

Paragliding is AMAZING.

Did I say paragliding was amazing? Try paragliding over a glacier.

We managed to get an instructor each, so we were all paragliding at once, rather than taking turn.

I managed to video the takeoff and the landing, but most of the rest of the time I was just pointing the camera and hoping. Surprisingly, a few of my shots actually came out okay.

On the way back down to Chamonix.

I think the red parachute was Martyn, but I could be wrong.

Coming in to land. The flight lasted for around 20 minutes.

Tommy landing with his instructor, Frank.

Vicki and her instructor, Sean, who was originally from Preston.

Tommy post landing. Sunglasses were a good idea.

Day seven, and it's guess the activity time again. Vicki and Anna went off to climb to a different glacier (determined this time to actually reach it) while the boys went for another activity. No, it's not offroading. Well, not exactly..

Yes, after the regular mountain biking of Sunday, we decided to do some proper downhilling, with full suspension bikes, body armour, the proper gear. This is Martyn at the top.

So, as it turned out, Friday was a bit wet. And up on the mountain, it was also a bit cloudy. And very muddy. So... generally a bit treacherous, particularly for some first time downhillers. But that wasn't going to deter us.

There wasn't a lot of opportunity for photos during the ride, what with all the hanging on for dear life and coming off and landing on our faces. Can you spot what might have happened to Tommy's bike? The man at the shop was very good about it.

Post ride photo. Quick rollcall... mud on faces? Check. Damaged equipment? Check. Suspected broken knuckle? Check. At least one member of the party limping and/or in obvious pain? Check, check, check...

Day eight, last day. Boo. Time for a day trip to Geneva, before getting our flight out from the airport. This is Lake Geneva, sadly without the hugemassive fountain turned on.

A fountain in the park near where we sat on the grass for lunch.

Geneva's botanical gardens feature this slightly creepy Tim Burton-esque merry go round.

The gardens also had a bit of wildlife, including these deer and some really quite aggressive sparrows.

Mmm, refreshing.