In reply to simon manc:
I seem to remember a good bakery. If you mountinabike it's a good base - lot's to do. Closer to Annecy which is nice for summer for a swim in the lake.
I guess the downsides are being slightly further from Italy and Switzerland (strangely, one of the things my lass and I liked about living in Chamonix was the proximity to other great places!).
The Cham pollution can get bad. Others have already said St G is better and I have no reason to disagree. In Cham it could get a bit oppressive and it was a small part of the reason we left. It seems bizarre to be somewhere where you should have "clean mountain air" and be in the most polluted valley in western europe!