June to August
July and August put every pass at its most open and its most crowded. The answer is not to avoid summer, it is to change your hours and your latitude.
In summer, every alpine pass is open and every alpine pass is busy. Between ten in the morning and five in the afternoon the Stelvio is a queue, not a driving road.
Two things fix it. Drive between five and nine in the morning, when the hairpins are genuinely empty. Or go north, where Norway and Sweden give you long light, low traffic and roads that are only open in these months anyway.
Checked by the Drivers Atlas desk
Scored and written by the Drivers Atlas editorial desk, drawing on driven routes across the UK and Europe, mapping data and member road reports. Every road in the library carries a driving and scenery score set by the same method. How we score roads.
Last reviewed 30 May 2026
The roads
Norway · More og Romsdal, Norway
Eleven hairpins claw up a sheer valley wall beneath waterfalls and the Trolltindene peaks.
20 km · 12.4 mi · Atlas rating 9.7 / 10
Closed roughly October to May
Norway · More og Romsdal, Norway
A low bridge skips between skerries with the open Norwegian Sea breaking either side.
8.3 km · 5.2 mi · Atlas rating 9.3 / 10
Can close briefly in severe coastal storms
Norway · More og Romsdal, Norway
Hairpins spiral down to the Geirangerfjord past waterfalls with names like the Seven Sisters.
106 km · 65.9 mi · Atlas rating 9.6 / 10
Closed roughly October to May
Austria · Vorarlberg and Tyrol, Austria
Thirty four hairpins climb past the turquoise Silvretta reservoir to a glacier ringed summit.
22 km · 13.7 mi · Atlas rating 9.3 / 10
Closed roughly November to May
France · Savoie and Hautes-Alpes, France
The spine of the Route des Grandes Alpes, a relentless climb to one of driving's holiest summits.
18.1 km · 11.2 mi · Atlas rating 9.6 / 10
Closed roughly October to May with snow at the summit
France · Vosges, France
A ridge road built for wartime supply lines, tracing rounded Vosges summits above the Rhine.
83 km · 51.6 mi · Atlas rating 8.7 / 10
Highest sections can ice in winter
Practicalities
A six in the morning start on any famous pass gives you a completely different road from the one the coaches see at eleven.
Above the Arctic Circle in June you can drive at midnight in daylight. Norwegian mountain roads such as Sognefjellet are only open in these months.
In peak season the constraint is beds, not tarmac. Fix the overnight stops first and route between them.
Common questions
Before nine in the morning. Traffic on the popular passes builds sharply from mid morning and stays heavy until late afternoon.
Northern Scandinavia, inland Portugal, the Massif Central and much of eastern Europe stay comparatively empty even in peak season.