France/Italy - Alpitrail

From the very start, the climb towards the heights has begun and with it the breathtaking views around you! You will be heading towards Risoul and then towards Agnel pass, from where you can catch a panoramic view of the mountain range and three of its main peaks: Font Sancte (3 387 m), Saume (3 035 m) and Péouvou (3 233m). You will have left behind the bucolic prairies and grazing animals and are now surrounded by a much harsher aspect of nature, in all its grandeur and immensity! Here and there, however, you might catch a sight of a groundhog observing his surroundings!
Your trip will take close to Saint-Véran, located at 2 040 m and at the very gates of the Queyras National Park, the highest inhabited town in Europe!
A stretch of winding paved road will take you down to the valley from where you will take a very pleasant earth track into Val Mayra at the foot of the Piedmontese mountain.

Your itinerary will continue to the south towards the province of Cuneo.
Certain stretches of the road might get your adrenaline pumping as you drive on unstable and wobbling paving stones. More than ever, you must keep you calm and concentrate! This is the start of the famous “Real Strata”. It took more than a century, from 1650 to 1780, to turn this mule track into a proper road suitable for vehicles, now called “Route du Sel”; it would become an important commercial route uniting both sides of the Alps.
After an exhilarating ride, today’s stage ends in Nava, a region close to the sea which offers the traveler a well-deserved rise in temperatures.

You will be leaving Ligurie behind and heading west towards the “Route de Sel” and the wonders of the Tende pass. The track will take you to Fort Central, one of the six military constructions de Italian army built between 1800 and 1900, still in use during the Second World War.
Further down, a spectacularly winding road featuring 41 curbs takes you to Fort Marguerite in just a few kilometers.

Today’s road joins the Italian and French Alps and will take you to the Lombard pass, driving through the Stura valley and under the pine trees of the Northern slopes. From these heights, the panoramic view takes in the red slate roofs of the tiny towns built around their churches and their belfries. You will continue towards the Col de la Lombarde, a green mountain offering flat and almost lunar landscapes until you reach the famous ski station, Isola 2000.
The gates of the Mercantour National Park seem to open for you by magic as the century old twisted pine trees seem to murmur their welcome!
You will then leave these surreal surroundings behind as you drive towards the Bonnette pass (2 860 m), the highest pass in Europe, and start your descent towards the Ubaye valley. The track takes you through a pine-covered forest and to the Parpaillon pass.
The mountain tunnel seems to swallow the traveler up into its dark and damp recesses. The bikes focus on the light at the end of the tunnel, as they drive through puddles and make slow progress. This is the legendary Parpaillon pass! It’s located on the border between the Alpes de Haute-Provence and the Hautes Alpes, and rises to 2 780 m.
At this point, the atmosphere is typically Alpine with its pasture lands, rocks and scree, and no one in sight, until you reach the town of Chalp.