Best Days on the Road

"The route crosses 16 mountain passes. The Col du Galibier, at 2,642 metres, is the highest paved road in France. The view from the top is worth the climb."

The Route des Grandes Alpes was conceived in 1909 by the Touring Club de France as a scenic route linking the Alps to the Mediterranean. It runs from Thonon-les-Bains on the shore of Lake Geneva to Menton on the French Riviera — approximately 700 kilometres through the French Alps, crossing 16 mountain passes and climbing through some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in Europe.

The route passes through Haute-Savoie, Savoie, Isère, Hautes-Alpes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, and Alpes-Maritimes — six departments, each with its own character, its own food, and its own relationship with the mountains. In the north, the landscape is green and forested, the villages are Savoyard, and the food is built around cheese and cream. In the south, the landscape opens into lavender fields and limestone plateaux, the villages are Provençal, and the food shifts toward olive oil, herbs, and rosé.

The highest point is the Col du Galibier, at 2,642 metres — the highest paved road in France and one of the most celebrated climbs in the Tour de France. The Galibier has featured in the Tour more than 60 times since 1911. The memorial to Henri Desgrange, the founder of the Tour, stands at the summit. The view from the top — the Écrins massif to the south, the Mont Blanc massif to the north — is one of the great mountain panoramas in Europe.

The route is typically open from June to October. Several of the high passes — including the Galibier and the Col de l'Iseran — are closed by snow from November to May. The ideal time to drive it is late June, when the passes have just opened and the wildflower meadows are at their peak, or early September, when the summer crowds have thinned and the light has the particular quality of early autumn in the mountains.

Just Gerald's recommendation: drive it south, from Thonon to Menton. The passes are more dramatic when you approach them from the north, and arriving at the Mediterranean after days in the mountains is one of the great travel experiences — the moment when the road finally descends through the last limestone gorge and the sea appears, blue and flat and impossibly warm.

"Lake Annecy is the cleanest lake in Europe. The water is so clear that you can see the bottom at ten metres depth."

Annecy sits at the northern end of Lake Annecy, 35 kilometres south of Geneva, and is one of the most beautiful towns in France. This is not a controversial claim. The old town — a medieval warren of canals, arcaded streets, and geranium-hung bridges — is genuinely extraordinary, and the lake behind it, ringed by mountains, is the cleanest in Europe.

The town has been drawing visitors since the 19th century, when it became a fashionable destination for the Savoyard aristocracy and later for the Parisian bourgeoisie. The result is a town that knows how to feed and house visitors without losing its own character — a balance that many beautiful French towns have failed to maintain.

Le Clos des Sens (13 rue Jean-Mermoz, Annecy-le-Vieux) is a two-Michelin-star restaurant run by Laurent Petit, who has built his menu around the produce of the lake and the surrounding mountains. The lake fish — féra, omble chevalier, perch — are the centrepiece. The tasting menu is long and exceptional. Book months in advance.

Café de la Brasserie (17 rue Sainte-Claire) is the correct alternative: a proper French brasserie on the main arcaded street of the old town, serving onion soup, steak frites, and local Savoyard wine. The terrace looks onto the canal. The wine list is short and honest.

La Maison de Marc Veyrat — the legendary chef who grew up in the mountains above Annecy and built his cuisine around Alpine plants and herbs — is no longer open in its original form, but Veyrat's influence on the food of the region is everywhere. The use of local herbs, mountain flowers, and lake fish in contemporary Savoyard cooking traces directly back to him.

The lake itself: swim in it. The water is cold and clear and the mountains are reflected in it. There are several public beaches. The Plage d'Albigny, on the eastern shore, is the best.

"Henri Desgrange, who founded the Tour de France, wrote of the Galibier: 'O Laffrey! O Bayard! O Aravis! Before this giant, you are no more than pale and commonplace babies.'"

The Col du Galibier stands at 2,642 metres above sea level, on the border between the Savoie and Hautes-Alpes departments. It is the highest paved road in France, the highest pass on the Route des Grandes Alpes, and one of the most celebrated climbs in cycling. It has been included in the Tour de France more than 60 times since 1911, when the race first crossed it in the era of unpaved roads and single-speed bicycles.

The approach from the north — from Valloire, through the Col du Télégraphe and then the long climb to the summit — is the classic Tour de France ascent. The road climbs 1,200 metres over 18 kilometres. The gradient averages 6.9 percent. In July, when the Tour passes through, the road is lined with tens of thousands of spectators who have camped on the mountainside for days.

In June or September, when the Tour is not here, the road is quiet. The summit is cold even in summer — bring a layer regardless of the weather below. The view from the top is extraordinary: the Écrins massif to the south, the Vanoise to the east, the Mont Blanc massif to the north. On a clear day, you can see into Italy.

The memorial to Henri Desgrange stands just below the summit. Desgrange founded the Tour de France in 1903 and directed it until 1936. He was obsessed with the Galibier — he wrote about it in terms that bordered on religious. The memorial is a simple stone monument with a bronze plaque. It is worth stopping for.

The descent to the south — toward Briançon — is faster and more open than the northern approach, with long sweeping curves through a high Alpine valley. The village of Briançon, at the bottom, is the highest city in France and has a remarkable Vauban-designed fortified old town. Stop for coffee.

"Tartiflette is not a traditional Savoyard dish. It was invented in the 1980s by the Reblochon cheese producers' association to increase sales. It worked."

The food of the French Alps is built around the logic of altitude and cold. The cheeses are washed-rind and pungent — Reblochon, Beaufort, Abondance, Tomme de Savoie — because the milk from cows grazing at altitude has a richness that rewards strong treatment. The dishes are caloric and satisfying — tartiflette, fondue, raclette, gratin dauphinois — because the people who developed them were spending their days in the cold.

Tartiflette is the most famous Savoyard dish and, as the pull quote notes, the most recent. It is a gratin of potatoes, lardons, onions, and Reblochon cheese, baked until the cheese melts and browns. It is very good. It is also, at altitude after a day of driving mountain passes, exactly what you want. Every restaurant in the Alps serves it. The quality varies. The best versions use proper Reblochon — the farmhouse variety, not the industrial — and don't skimp on the lardons.

Fondue Savoyarde is the older dish and the more demanding one. A proper fondue uses a blend of Beaufort, Comté, and Gruyère, melted with white wine and a small amount of kirsch. The bread must be slightly stale — fresh bread absorbs too much cheese. The pot must be kept at the right temperature. A good fondue is a serious undertaking. The best place to eat it is a small family restaurant in a village above the snowline, where the owner has been making it for forty years.

Beaufort is the great cheese of the Alps — a hard, cooked-curd cheese made from the milk of Tarentaise and Abondance cows grazing at altitude. It has a complex, nutty flavour and a smooth texture. The summer Beaufort, made from milk of cows on the high Alpine pastures, is the finest. Buy it from a fromagerie, not a supermarket.

The wine: Savoie produces some of the most underrated wines in France. The whites — Roussette de Savoie, Apremont, Chignin — are crisp and mineral, made from local grape varieties that grow nowhere else. They are the correct wine with fondue, with fish from the lakes, with the food of the region. They are also inexpensive. Take some home.

"Menton is the last town in France before Italy. It is also the warmest town in France, sheltered by the Alps from the north wind."

The Route des Grandes Alpes ends in Menton, a small town on the French Riviera pressed between the Alps and the Mediterranean, two kilometres from the Italian border. After days in the mountains — the cold, the altitude, the vast empty landscapes — arriving in Menton is a genuine shock: the warmth, the colour, the smell of citrus and salt, the sea.

Menton is the warmest town in France. The Alps to the north block the cold mistral wind that scours the rest of the Riviera, and the town sits in a natural amphitheatre that traps the sun. The result is a microclimate that allows lemon and orange trees to grow outdoors year-round — the town's lemon festival in February is one of the most celebrated in France.

The old town — Vieille Ville — climbs steeply from the seafront in a cascade of ochre and terracotta buildings. The Basilica of Saint-Michel-Archange, at the top, has a Baroque façade and a terrace with a view over the bay that is one of the finest on the Riviera. The cemetery above the old town, where the writer Katherine Mansfield is buried, has views that justify the climb.

Mirazur (30 avenue Aristide Briand) is a three-Michelin-star restaurant run by Mauro Colagreco, an Argentine chef who has built his menu around the garden above the restaurant and the sea below it. It has been ranked the best restaurant in the world. The tasting menu is long and extraordinary. Book six months in advance.

The practical end of the road: park the car at the seafront, walk to the old town, find a table at a café on the Place aux Herbes, and order a glass of local rosé. You have driven 700 kilometres through the French Alps. The sea is in front of you. This is the correct way to finish.