We spent 12 days on the greatest hiking trail in the world. You can, too. – The Boston Globe

CHAMONIX, France — What is the greatest long-distance hiking trail in the world? That is a matter of opinion, of course, but for knee-buckling scenery, physical and mental challenge, and the availability of trailside cappuccino, it would be hard to beat the Tour du Mont Blanc.

The TMB, as it is called, is a roughly 107-mile loop entirely around the base of 15,766-foot Mont Blanc, the king of the Alps, a massive, photogenic white peak streaked with glaciers near the corner of France, Italy, and Switzerland. The TMB passes through all three countries and hikers spend a few days in each.

Completing the TMB is a terrific way to experience European food and culture, as well as an ideal introduction to long-distance trekking, as my wife, Jennifer, and I found this past July when we hiked the famous trail over 12 days.

If you enjoy sleeping on the ground, choking down rehydrated meals, and “bathing” with a wet wipe, sure, you can do the TMB that way.

Or you can stay in boutique hotels and rustic mountain huts, dine each night at a great restaurant, and have a hot shower every day.

We did the TMB that second way. The one with the showers.

Our unguided hike started in Chamonix, France, an Aspen-like resort town, packed with restaurants, hotels, and many outdoorsy gear shops. From Chamonix, we hiked the TMB counterclockwise, over rugged high passes, through small French hamlets, and then crossed the border into Italy on Day 4. There’s no border control, just a festive set of flags on a high mountain pass, and the subtle shift in trail greetings among hikers, from bonjour to buongiorno. We gorged on pasta during a rest day in the bustling Italian resort town of Courmayeur, and then reached Switzerland on Day 8. The mountain views became less dramatic, though the landscape greener, with cowbells ringing in the distance. On Day 12, again in France, we surmounted the trail’s famous “ladder section” (not nearly as intense as we had been led to believe), and marched back into Chamonix, weary but thrilled to have completed the circuit.

Most days on the trek followed this six-point action plan:

1. Wake up in a hotel in some quaint European mountain village.

2. Buy a fresh baguette or some other heavenly, still-warm bread from the local baker.

3. Get back on the TMB and ascend steep trails into breathtaking mountains, ripping off mouthfuls of bread whenever we need a snack.

4. Stop at a trailside mountain hut in the middle of nowhere for cappuccino and cake.

5. Spend several hours hiking down into the next village and the next hotel.

6. Explore the new town in the evening; consume an entire pizza by myself.

The TMB is conveniently dotted with mountain huts that serve drinks and food; we also slept a couple of nights in huts. They were basic and clean, miles from civilization. The best part of staying at them is swapping trail stories with hikers from around the world in giant family-style dinners.

The prime TMB hiking season is July through September, when last winter’s snow is mostly gone, and this winter’s snow hasn’t arrived yet. With a short hiking window, hotels and huts fill up early. We booked one year ahead, hiring one of many available trip-planning companies that specialize in creating trail itineraries and booking hotels and huts.

We used the travel firm Pygmy Elephant, which did a good job with the bookings. They also provided a live Zoom briefing on the hike, paper and electronic maps, and stood by during our hike to troubleshoot any problems. The company offers full TMB trips at several price tiers, ranging from about $2,100 a person for the basics, to about $4,800 for a slightly longer trip and higher-end accommodations. We handled our own flights from Boston to Geneva, connecting in Amsterdam.

The company also coordinated our luggage transfer, a cushy benefit available on the TMB. Each morning a taxi van collected our duffle bags containing toiletries, spare clothes, etc., at the hotel. When we tramped out of the mountains that afternoon, the bags would be waiting at our next hotel. That freed us to hike with light daypacks, carrying just water, snacks, and the layers we’d need that day.

About the hiking: It’s a lot. We covered about 10 to 12 miles a day, often up and over a high mountain pass, called a col. It was like climbing and descending a 7,000-to-8,000-foot mountain every day. The trail is often steep, sometimes rough. The cumulative effect of all the hiking is substantial as the days pile up. On the other hand, the trail is not technical. It’s generally easy to follow, with signs at many intersections. We also used a cellphone app, Gaia GPS, to plot our exact position on detailed topo maps. Downloading the maps ahead of time makes them available even when there is no cell signal.

The other benefit of so much hiking is that it’s practically impossible to out-eat all that exercise, a benefit on a trip that is as much about food as the outdoors.

On Day 3 of our hike, I bought bagged lunches from our hotel in the village of Les Contamines, France, and stuffed them in my daypack for the trail. The cold grilled cheese sandwich I ravenously devoured that afternoon atop 7,500-foot Col du Bonhomme is among the top 15 most satisfying meals of my life. If it doesn’t seem possible that a humble grilled cheese could be that good, remember that the French really know cheese, and everything tastes better high in the Alps, among the jagged peaks and green valleys, on the greatest long-distance hiking trail in the world.

Mark Arsenault can be reached at mark.arsenault@globe.com. Follow him @bostonglobemark.