Great Drives Open the map app

Route des Grandes Alpes

D902 corridor · Thonon-les-Bains → Menton · France

Length
430 miles
Drive time
3–6 days
Type
Grand touring road
Region
Europe

Before you go: High cols closed roughly Oct–Jun — drive it in summer

The grand traverse: Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean over sixteen great cols including Iseran, Galibier and Izoard. The finest multi-day driving holiday in Europe, full stop.

Thonon-les-Bains to Menton: about 430 miles, three to six days, sixteen cols, six of them above 2,000 m, including Iseran, Galibier and Izoard. It is a corridor, not a single surface. High cols closed roughly October to June — drive it in summer, and check each col the night before. Col des Aravis, Col de l'Iseran and Refuge Napoléon at Izoard are the sample stops already in the data; Intermarché in Bourg-Saint-Maurice is a practical fuel.

Do not average eight cols a day. The app already holds Galibier, Izoard, Bonette and Turini as their own roads; use those pages. The Route is the stitching, like the Wild Atlantic Way, except the barriers are snow.

Book beds in the towns, not at the cols, and have a rest day in the middle. Menton is a coast, not a finish-line banner.

If a col is shut, the Route still exists on a lower road. Take it. The point is Geneva's lake to the Mediterranean, not a count of closed gates. Iseran is the highest and the one that opens last; do not plan it for the first week of June. Turini and the corniches are the Mediterranean end, a different climate and a different traffic. A rest day in Briançon or Barcelonnette stops the trip becoming a col-bagging blur. The app's individual col pages are the night-before reading; this corridor is just the order. Fuel in the towns (Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Briançon, Barcelonnette), never on a col. If Iseran is shut, the Route still reaches the south on lower roads — take them rather than waiting at a barrier for a summit that is still in snow.

Highlights of the Route des Grandes Alpes

Where to stop on the Route des Grandes Alpes

Drive the Route des Grandes Alpes

Open Route des Grandes Alpes on the map → ⬇ Download GPX

GPX works with Garmin, TomTom, Beeline and most bike sat-navs. Free, no sign-up — these are indicative waypoints, so follow the road signs, not the arrow.

Plot it, add it to a club run with a meeting point and pit stops, then share the whole trip as one link. Free, no account, works offline.

Route research: Club road index · More roads in France

More driving roads in Europe