The Great Dolomites Drive

The Strada delle Dolomiti was engineered in 1909 for horse-drawn carriages and has been quietly perfected ever since. What survives is a road of extraordinary rhythm: long, sighted third-gear sweepers on the valley floors, then a switch to tight, stacked hairpins as the limestone closes in.

The Pordoi is the set piece, thirty-three numbered corners on the western ramp, each one cambered generously enough to carry speed, each one opening onto a view of the Sella massif that seems computer-generated. The Falzarego that follows is faster and wider, a road for a GT rather than a stopwatch.

Go early. By ten o'clock the motorhomes arrive and the magic thins. Go in a convertible if you possibly can: the Dolomites reward hearing the rock walls as much as seeing them.