Ten jaw-dropping mountain roads and passes to drive

Some roads exist to get you somewhere; these exist to be driven. Built by empires, armies and the occasional stubborn dictator, the passes below stack hairpins up impossible walls and reward every gear change with another ridiculous view. A few practicalities apply to all of them: most high passes only open from roughly June to October, mornings mean emptier tarmac and calmer motorcyclists, and the golden rule is that the driver gets the corners while the passenger gets the scenery — so swap at the summit café.

Forty-eight numbered hairpins climb the northern ramp to 2,757 metres in a stack so orderly it looks like a diagram. Top Gear once called it the world's greatest driving road, which guaranteed you'd never have it to yourself. Go at dawn, midweek, outside August, and beware the one day each summer — usually late August — when the pass closes to cars entirely for thousands of cyclists. Bratwurst at the summit is tradition.

Austria's showpiece toll road swings for forty-eight kilometres over the Hochtor pass and out to a face-to-face view of the Pasterze glacier beneath Grossglockner itself. The toll is steep — around forty euros per car — but buys immaculate tarmac, exhibitions and marmot-grazed picnic stops. Arrive before 9am and the ticket feels cheap. Detour up the Edelweissspitze spur for the 360-degree version of everything.

Ceaușescu built this over the Făgăraș mountains as a military route; what he actually created was ninety kilometres of switchbacks that drone footage was invented for. The northern approach below Bâlea Lake is the iconic stretch — pull over at the viewpoints and just stare. It typically opens only from late June to October, so check status before travelling, and go early: weekend traffic from Bucharest turns hairpins into car parks.

The 'Troll's Ladder' claws up a fjord-country cliff in eleven hairpins, passing beneath the Stigfossen waterfall so closely you may want the wipers on. At the top, an architect-designed viewpoint juts over the abyss so you can study the road you just survived. It's short — you'll drive it in twenty minutes — so combine it with the Geiranger road for a full day. Late June to August is the reliable window; check reopening dates after landslide works.

The prettiest link in the Dolomites' famous four-pass loop, the Sella Ronda, this road curls between the pale towers of the Sella massif and the Sassolungo's saw-blade ridge. The rock glows pink at dusk — the enrosadira — which is the time to be up here with a camera. On summer mornings the pass sometimes restricts private cars to cut congestion, so check access days or, better, drive it late afternoon into that pink hour.

James Bond chased Goldfinger along the Furka in an Aston Martin DB5, and the road remains pure cinema: 2,429 metres of sweeping curves with the Rhône glacier hanging above the western ramp. Stop at the derelict, faded Hotel Belvédère on its famous hairpin for the photo everyone wants. String it together with the Grimsel and Susten passes for the classic Swiss three-pass loop, comfortably done in a day from Andermatt.

Britain's answer to the Alps is a single-track road over the Applecross peninsula, rising from sea level to 626 metres through gradients of twenty per cent and hairpins with genuine consequences. On a clear day the summit looks across to Skye; on a normal day, atmospheric murk. Passing places are not parking places — locals will remind you. Finish at the Applecross Inn for langoustines, and avoid towing anything whatsoever.

The connoisseurs' Dolomite pass: twenty-nine hairpins to a 2,236-metre saddle where the lone tooth of Ra Gusela erupts from meadows that look mown by hand. The Giau is a Giro d'Italia regular, so expect lycra and give it generous room. Sunrise here is the great Dolomites photograph — pink light, empty tarmac, cowbells — and the summit refuge does a proper breakfast afterwards. Come from mid-June to early July for wildflowers with your gear changes.

The Maloja is the odd one out among Engadine passes: pancake-flat along the lake-strewn valley from St Moritz, then suddenly off a cliff — thirteen tight hairpins tumbling towards Italy in a wall of bends best admired from the viewpoint above the top switchback. Painters adored this light; Segantini refused to leave it. Carry on down to Lake Como for lunch and you've linked Switzerland's grandest valley to Italy's grandest lake in a single morning. Autumn brings golden larches and empty tarmac.

Mallorca's mad masterpiece: twelve kilometres of corkscrewing descent through the Tramuntana range to a pebble cove, including the famous 'tie knot' where the road loops 270 degrees underneath itself. Engineer Antonio Parietti designed it in the 1930s with no purpose beyond the pleasure of driving it. There's no way out but back up, which is rather the point. Go before 9am — coaches and hire cars clot the bends by mid-morning — and swim at the bottom.