The straight forward route to Italy would have been to jump on the toll road and pass through the Mont Blanc tunnel.
Unfortunately Karen woke up in the morning saying she really didn’t fancy this route and was having a mini freak about going through the tunnel. The Mont Blanc tunnel is a little over 7 miles long, there is a lot of red tape nowadays when using the tunnel. Such as you cant drive over 40 mph, if you drive closer than 150 metres to the car in front then an alarm will warn you etc. Also the cost is quite expensive at just under 50 euros for a motorhome.
It wouldn’t be an adventure if everything went to plan so it was back to the drawing board. It seemed we could use the St Bernard pass as an alternative route. This meant going over the mountains rather than through them. The route was very scenic, but the roads were windy and we really couldn’t tell you how many hairpin bends there were we lost count. The red line in sat nav picture below shows the route we needed to take.
We stopped to admire the view at La Rosiere which was 1850 metres above sea level. The weather wasn’t great and the temperature had dropped to 6 degrees.
We drove on to Col Du Petit Saint Bernard which stands proudly at 2188 m above sea level.
Then a few hundred yards along the road we crossed the Italian border.
We then had to navigate the long descent down which meant another series of hair pin bends and with the speed limit set at 19 mph it took us some time to get back down again.
So yes, it was a route around Mont Blanc and it was definitely very scenic but it took us 4 and half hours to do 60 miles. So don’t use this route if time is of the essence.
