gordons-joint

Me enjoying a nice can of Irn Bru (that we’d driven all the way from Glasgow) at 9,000ft, the top of the Stelvio Pass.

Passo dello Stelvio, Italy.

Stelvio Pass.

Italy.

We drove all the way from Scotland to Bormio in Italy and excitedly set off up the Stelvio Pass, only to get stuck about 1 mile in when a coach got itself wedged in a tunnel! Twenty minutes of guiding and scraping later the coach was free and we could all get on our way to the top.

Stelvio Pass, Italy.

Looking over the lake.

St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Passo dello Stelvio

Two of the countless cyclists we saw taking on Stelvio reach the top of the pass.

The penultimate stage of this years Giro d’Italia finished at the top of Passo dello Stelvio. During the 219km stage the riders climbed and descended both the Tonale (1883 metres) and Mortirolo (1852 metres) passes before the final 22.4km climb from Bormio to Stelvio (2757 metres) at an average 12 percent gradient.

Passo dello Stelvio, Italy.

Top of the Fuorn Pass, or Ofenpass, at 2,149m (7,050ft) above sea level. A brilliant drive, both up and down, we hardly met another car the whole way over the pass.

Ofenpass, Switzerland.

(Source: gordons-joint)

The road heading south outside a small town we happened to drive through by chance called Gordona! I remember looking at the sign thinking “that name sounds familiar…”!

From here we drove down Lake Como before skirting Lake Garda and ultimately on to Modena that night.

Outside Gordona, Italy.

The middle of nowhere in the Austrian Alps, that’s about as specific as I can be for this photo! Just stopped the car and got out to stretch our legs.

The tiny village of Surlej, just along the road from St. Moritz, is visible through a gap in the clouds from the top of 3,057m high Piz Nair.

Piz Nair, Switzerland.

Looking down the west side of the Stelvio Pass. Nowhere near as steep as the east but still quite a climb. From this point (maybe a third of the way up) there are quite a few more hairpins before the road opens out again on it’s way to the top. In a turbocharged car like mine the altitude makes quite a difference. You really feel a lack of power on the steep inclines until the turbo spins up and feeds more air to the engine.

Stelvio, Italy.