Guide
The highest roads in Europe
Europe’s highest tarmac lives above the treeline, where the air thins, the guardrails get optional and the season lasts four months. These are the highest paved roads in Europe from our catalogue, ranked by summit elevation. Every height is measured from the road’s real geometry, not a rounded-up legend.
Ötztaler Gletscherstraße (Sölden Glacier Road)7 mi · 17 min · 2,818.8 m summitView the roadbook ›
Summit
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1
2,819 m9,249 ft
Ötztaler Gletscherstraße (Sölden Glacier Road)
Europe’s rooftop, or very nearly. The Sölden glacier road grinds up the Rettenbach valley in tight switchbacks to near 2,830 m, often cited as the second-highest paved road on the continent, finishing through a tunnel at the ski stations amid genuine glacier country. It is a dead-end climb, so you are here purely to stand as high as European tarmac allows and look at ice. Thin air, late-lying snow and abrupt weather come with the altitude. It is a toll road with seasonal hours. Drive it in high summer, and treat the top like the alpine environment it is.
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2
2,757 m9,045 ftStelvio Pass
The one every driver dreams of, and the second-highest paved pass in the Alps at 2,757 m. Forty-eight numbered hairpins stack up the Prato side, the summit thin and exposed and usually thronged, the whole thing a monument to what road engineers will do to cross a mountain. On a list ranked by height it sits near the top of Europe; on any list it sits near the top full stop. Climb it from Prato for the countdown of the hairpins, drive it early before the crowds, and mind the altitude weather. Closed and snowbound in winter, glorious in summer.
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3
2,757 m9,045 ftCol de l'Iseran
The highest paved pass in the Alps, at 2,764 m, and it feels every metre. The D902 links Val-d’Isère with Bonneval-sur-Arc through bare, glacier-scoured high country to the cross at the summit, the air noticeably thin, the landscape stripped to rock and ice. It edges out the Stelvio for the altitude crown among Alpine through-passes. Drive it from the Val-d’Isère side so the long, rhythmic descent to Bonneval is the reward, go in summer when it is open, and carry a layer for a summit that stays cold whatever the valley promises.
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4
2,747 m9,012 ftKaunertal Glacier Road
The other great Tyrolean glacier climb, and one of the highest dead-ends in the Alps. Twenty-six kilometres from Feichten gain about 1,500 m to the glacier edge around 2,750 m, twenty-nine hairpins delivering you to a high, cold, icy world at the road’s end. Like its Sölden neighbour it exists purely to get you high among the glaciers. It is a toll road and strictly a summer drive. Pair it with the Ötztaler Gletscherstraße for two of Europe’s highest roads back to back, mind the altitude, and drive it in the warm months when the ice at the top is at its most spectacular.
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5
2,742 m8,996 ftCol Agnel
The quiet giant, and the third-highest paved pass in the Alps at 2,744 m. The road climbs from the Queyras past Molines and Saint-Véran, one of the highest villages in Europe, to a lonely frontier saddle west of Monte Viso, then drops into Italy. Where the Stelvio and the Iseran draw crowds to their altitude, the Agnel offers nearly the same height in near-solitude. It narrows in its upper reaches, with ramps to 10 per cent and fast-changing weather. Drive it up from France, go in summer or autumn, and enjoy one of the highest and emptiest passes on the continent.
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6
2,701 m8,862 ftCol de la Bonette
Marketed for years as Europe’s highest, and still one of its most extraordinary. The loop around the Cime de la Bonette reaches 2,802 m, higher than the through-pass beneath it, and up top the landscape is genuinely lunar, lonely and bare and unforgettable. Whatever the technicalities of the ranking, few paved roads take you this high in the Alps or feel this otherworldly at the summit. It is a big day, twenty-nine miles with fifty-five corners. Drive it from Jausiers, carry warm layers whatever the valley temperature, and mind the livestock on the open high road.
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7
2,618 m8,589 ftPasso di Gavia
High and wild where its neighbours are high and grand. The Gavia crests at 2,621 m between Bormio and Ponte di Legno on a narrow, often unguarded ribbon, the altitude arriving without the Stelvio’s theatre or the Grossglockner’s polish, just thin air, rough tarmac, sheer drops and silent tarns. It is the connoisseur’s high pass, gradient to 16 per cent and a tightness that tops this guide. Drive it in good weather and daylight, give way early on the narrow sections, and pair it with the Stelvio from the same town for two of the highest and most different passes in the Alps.
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8
2,611 m8,566 ftColle del Nivolet
A dead-end to the high lakes, and one of the loftiest roads in Italy at 2,609 m. The SP50 climbs above Ceresole Reale through the Gran Paradiso to a chain of mountain lakes, forty dense corners in eleven miles, the Italian Job hairpins delivering you to a high, exposed world with nowhere further to go. The altitude here comes with a reward of still water and silent peaks. The top closes to cars on summer weekends under a permit scheme, so check before you go. Drive it in summer, take the altitude gently, and turn around at the lakes that crown the climb.
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9
2,580 m8,465 ftDerebaşı Bends
Altitude with terror attached. The D915 crosses the Soğanlı Pass at 2,330 m, but its Derebaşı section stacks thirteen guardrail-free hairpins up a sheer face with drops of hundreds of metres, high and exposed and open barely four months a year. It earns its place on a European height list, but what you remember is not the altitude, it is the absence of any barrier between the tyres and the void. Built by hand in 1916. Drive it in high summer, in the dry, and treat the most extreme high road in Europe with total, undivided concentration.
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10
2,528 m8,294 ftTeide Caldera Traverse
Europe’s highest volcano road, and its most alien altitude. The TF-21 climbs to around 2,350 m at the cable-car station inside the caldera of Teide, and while it is not the continent’s highest tarmac, no other European road puts you this high amid active-volcano scenery, mile upon mile of rust-red lava with a 3,715 m cone overhead. On Spanish soil in the Atlantic, it is driveable all year, which no Alpine high pass can claim. Drive it at golden hour when the lava catches fire, layer up for the altitude, and take Europe’s strangest high road two hours from a beach.
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11
2,520 m8,268 ftSierra Nevada
Climbing toward the Pico Veleta, Europe’s highest paved road, high above Granada.
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12
2,507 m8,225 ftGrossglockner High Alpine Road
Austria’s grand toll road, sweeping past glaciers to 2,500 m.
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13
2,498 m8,196 ftUmbrail Pass
Switzerland’s highest paved pass road, hairpins up to the Stelvio.
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14
2,487 m8,159 ftColle Fauniera
Rough, narrow and gloriously empty at around 2,500 m, a summer-only crossing of bare summits between the Stura and Grana valleys with no barriers to speak of.
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15
2,475 m8,120 ftTimmelsjoch
Hairpins climb from green Ötztal meadows into bare, snow-streaked high country, tipping you over from Austria into Italy at 2,474 metres.
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16
2,472 m8,110 ftNufenen Pass
The highest paved pass lying entirely within Switzerland, 2,478 m.
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17
2,460 m8,071 ftZigana Pass
The ancient Silk Road crossing of the Pontic Mountains, the D885 winds from Trabzon’s forested foothills to the 2,032 m Zigana Pass.
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18
2,456 m8,058 ftGreat St Bernard Pass
The historic Alpine climb of The Italian Job’s opening titles.
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19
2,445 m8,022 ftFurka Pass
A high Swiss pass of Bond-film fame above the Rhône glacier.
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20
2,407 m7,897 ftCol du Granon
One of France’s highest paved cols, a steep dead-end above Briançon.
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21
2,386 m7,828 ftFlüela Pass
A bare, beautiful pass between Davos and the Engadin.
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22
2,371 m7,779 ftRoute du Volcan
A 23 km forestry road that traverses three alien worlds in succession, cattle pasture, wind-blasted moorland and a stark lava plain, ending at the caldera rim of Piton de la Fournaise, one of the most active volcanoes on earth.
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23
2,361 m7,746 ftCol d'Izoard
A legendary Tour de France climb through the Casse Déserte.
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24
2,347 m7,700 ftCol de la Lombarde
A relentlessly twisting border climb above the Isola 2000 ski resort, famous for its near-continuous ladder of hairpins.
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25
2,326 m7,631 ftPasso del Bernina
A high glacier pass between the Engadin and Valtellina.
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26
2,313 m7,589 ftAlbula Pass
Quiet Graubünden pass shadowing the UNESCO Albula Railway viaducts.
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27
2,308 m7,572 ftForcola di Livigno
A 2315 m border pass linking Livigno to the Bernina, long straights through a craggy glacier-rimmed valley.
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28
2,305 m7,562 ftTre Cime di Lavaredo Toll Road
Steep tolled hairpin ramp from Misurina up to Rifugio Auronzo beneath the Three Peaks.
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29
2,301 m7,549 ftRoque de los Muchachos
A relentless ascent from sea level to 2,426 m through pine forest and bare rock to one of the world’s premier observatories, climbing so steeply that drivers emerge above the clouds with views across three other Canary Islands.
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30
2,290 m7,513 ftJulier Pass
An ancient, fast Roman pass into the Engadin.
Common questions
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