Italy
Stelvio Pass
Forty-eight hairpin bends climbing to 2,757 metres, the highest paved pass in the Eastern Alps.
The road switchbacks forty-eight times, each hairpin numbered in stone, the valley shrinking below until it vanishes. At 2,757 metres the air runs thin and the wind never stops. Switzerland lies over one shoulder, the Ortler's glaciers over the other.
The Stelvio is the highest paved pass in the Eastern Alps and the second highest in all the Alps, seven metres shy of France's Col de l'Iseran. The Austrian Empire drove the road over the summit between 1820 and 1825, and the numbered hairpins stacked up the Prato ramp remain one of the most recognisable stretches of tarmac in Europe. The Giro d'Italia has crowned it repeatedly as the race's highest point, the Cima Coppi. Snow walls line the bends into early summer; outside roughly June to October, the pass simply closes.
Friends
By car, motorbike or road bike, the hairpins become a shared story; the summit drink tastes earned.
Solo
Cycling the Stelvio is a rite of passage: pace the numbered bends, respect the descent, and carry layers for the summit.
- Forty-eight numbered hairpins climb the Prato ramp, each bend marked with its own stone.
- At 2,757 metres it is the highest paved pass in the Eastern Alps, second in the Alps only to the Col de l'Iseran.
- The Giro d'Italia's highest crossing, the Cima Coppi, has belonged to the Stelvio again and again.
- The road opens from early summer until the snows return; the season rewards planning.
Pizzoccheri, buckwheat ribbons with cabbage, potato and melted alpine cheese, wait in the valleys below.
Bresaola, air-dried Valtellina beef aged over juniper smoke, gets dressed simply with lemon and oil.
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