The beginning (first 5km from Italy to Switzerland) of the road is getting some work done and the condition is very poor. The rest is quite in good shape.
Italian side resurfaced (summer 09), now all except lowest part superb. Views off the edge fabulous but so far straight down it would be reckless to go for it. Look up from the bottom and you can see the road criss crossing the side of the mountain over and over again, amazing. Nice cafe at top too although gift shops (fluffy St Bernards no surprise) a bit tacky. Interesting retreat just over border on Swiss side. Great descent down the Swiss side.
Just completed the Grand St Bernard Pass (June 2008). The Swiss side coming up from Martigny was decent enough in terms of road condition (typical of the Swiss), very narrow with ice walls on one side and water streaming across the road in many places. Very, very quiet traffic wise with most sensible car and motorhome drivers taking the Mont Blanc tunnel or the St Bernard tunnel, I think we saw one car on the way up. View from the top of St Bernard was pretty good. Then started the descent into Italy and had a real shocker of a ride - I think the Romans are still building the road! The surface is truly terrible with large potholes, gravel everywhere and lots of subsidence on both side of the tarmac. In some places the sub-surface road piling posts are becoming visible. This means that you certainly need to be sharp on the observations since it was almost impossible to stay on the right side of the road. In some respects they ought to shut the route as I wouldnt classify it as a road. Would only recommend trying this route if you have a GS / traily or a 4x4 jeep!
Great route. No traffic tnx to the tunel, spetacular scenery. The view to Aosta valley is great. The Swiss part is faster with better road surface.
Crossing from Switzerland into Italy in a frenzy of frantic narrow but mostly well surfaced corners. Not much run off in places but incredible scenary and a pretty good surface on the Swiss side. The surface coming down on the Italian side is quite gravelly as there seemed to be some construction going on.
Snake Curves, greats to try on...
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