Route des Grandes Alpes

About

The Route des Grandes Alpes is a 720 km tourist route that crosses the French Alps from north to south through 17 mountain passes, 6 at more than 2,000 meters above sea level. It departs from Thonon-les-Bains (on Lake Geneva) to reach - since 2012 - Nice (on the Mediterranean) with a total of 17 000 meters of elevation. At the instigation in 1909 of the Touring club of France, the planned tourist itinerary makes it possible to use the alpine passes to connect the existing valley roads thanks to the strategic sections built from the end of the 19th century and the leisure sections built in the first half of the 20th century. The lowest altitude pass on the route of the Grandes-Alpes is the Col d'Eze with an altitude of 507 meters, the highest being the Iseran at 2,764 m.