Alps, Dolomites Grand Tour

Fourteen nights across six countries, guided, 2,450 miles through the Dolomites and the Swiss Alps, on the rider’s own motorcycle.

The Stelvio is the headline: Italy’s highest paved pass at 2,758 metres, with forty-eight numbered hairpins on the eastern side and forty on the western, and the shorter Umbrail as the alternative over the border.

The Reims-Gueux circuit and the B500 open it, then two nights in the Austrian Tirol with a Grossglockner ride-out. South Tirol and the Dolomites follow, with the Campolongo, Gardena, Pordoi and San Pellegrino passes among pale limestone towers in a world heritage landscape. Lake Garda comes next for two nights, with the Monte Baldo cable car available, then Bormio at the foot of the Stelvio. The Andermatt loop follows in Switzerland, linking the Grimsel, Nufenen, Gotthard, cobbled Tremola, Susten and Furka, then the Jura, the Vosges, the Route des Cretes, Verdun and the Chimay circuit on the way home.

The Eurotunnel crossing, thirteen nights in three and four-star hotels, daily breakfast, four evening meals, hotel leisure facilities, route maps and GPS files, all the parking and a guide throughout are all included; fuel, the Swiss and Austrian vignettes, the Grossglockner toll, entry fees, other meals and the mandatory insurance and breakdown cover are not. The price shown is per person for a rider and pillion sharing a bike and a room. Late May to October is the window, since the Stelvio and the Grossglockner both close in winter. Fifteen days with two double nights in it is the operator’s most pass-heavy itinerary, and an early start on the Stelvio beats the coaches and the cyclists to the hairpins.