Your La Fuga guide will pick you up from Milan Airport and take you to your first hotel in St Moritz; this drive should take about three hours. Here we will help you check-in, and your guide will build your bikes and make sure they are ready for the journey to follow. You can relax with a stroll around the town or maybe jump into the lake for a short swim. Your guide will talk to you about how the week of your Switzerland Cycling Tour will be run over a magnificent dinner.

Featured climbs:
Albula Pass – 2,312m
Julier Pass – 2,284m

We will start our ride from the hotel. The first challange is Albula Pass. It is a narrow pass with bare cliffs and steep, scree-covered slopes that radiate a wild and sombre beauty. The climb from La Punt is less than 10km long with an average of 6.6%.

Our second climb of the day is Julier Pass – 2,284 m. It is a beautiful road with wide, sweeping curves, while the landscape it passes through is wild and bare. This scenery inspired the Origen cultural festival, whose organisers built a dramatic red theatre tower at the summit of the pass.

After the ride, you can take in a massage at the hotel or just sit back and relax in the sun gazing at the lake stretching out in front of you.

Featured climbs:
Splugen Pass – 2,114m
Passo San Bernardino – 2,066m

Today you’ll take in two giants of the Swiss Alps. You will have about 50 minutes of transfer in the morning by vehicle from St Moritz to start riding in Chiavenna.

The Splugen pass is first on the list and it’s a long one. This is a 30km long climb but very steady at an average of 5.9% taking you to 2115metres. The middle section is the hardest with sections regularly above 8%. The descent is amazing and a series of hairpin corners similar to the Stelvio taking you down to the valley.

The next climb comes only 12 km after the descent. The San Bernardino takes you to a height of 2066metres. The climb is quiet due to a large tunnel taking the majority of traffic through the mountain. The road snakes across the mountainside as if it doesn’t know where it wants to go, climbing 9km at an average of 5%. The climb offers great views as you get higher due to the expanses of grassy slopes offering uninterrupted views. Lunch will be taken on the climb of taking in some spectacular views of the valley below.

At the top of the San Bernardino, there will be a chance to grab a coffee and maybe cool off in the lake at the summit but be warned it could be very cold. The road at the top snakes around the lake before reaching down the valley on the other side. The descent is around 25km taking you into the town of Soazza where the van will be waiting to take you to your hotel in Bellinzona only a 20-minute drive away.

There will be time to explore the impressive castle of ‘Castelgrande’ in Bellinzona, which was a heavily fortified town due to its strategic importance at the crossroads of converging valleys with the castles protecting these trade routes across the ages.

Dinner will be taken in the town at one of the many excellent restaurants.

Featured climbs:
Passo San Gottardo – 2,106m
Lukmanier Pass – 1,915 m

A big day of riding in the saddle today with two special climbs on the agenda. First, you’ll take a short 40-minute transfer to Quinto to start the ride. The Passo San Gottardo is first on the list.

This is one of the most impressive climbs in Switzerland; the Passo San Gottardo also known as the Tremola Road Pass is an engineering masterpiece to rival the Passo Stelvio. It was started in 1827 and was reconstructed in the 1950s. The upper kilometres are cobbled but with this being Switzerland they are well maintained and fairly smooth. The climb is 12.7km and averages 7.3% The descent down is into the town of Andermatt which has seen a lot of foreign investment in recent years to make it a world-class ski destination. The top of the Gottard marks the language and region border. You’re now in the German-speaking part of Switzerland having left the small canton of Ticino, the only Italian-speaking canton behind.

Our second climb of the day is Lukmanier Pass. The southern side of the Lukmanier pass is distinguished by its extremely varied landscape. The forests with their mountain pines, larches and Swiss stone pines, extensive meadows and mires are particularly characteristic features of this landscape. At the top is the lake – Lai da Sontga Maria. This serene lake is a natural wonder house an anchor pylon of Lukmanier Powerline and an arch dam that dates back to the 1960s.
After the long descent, the van will be waiting in Biasca to take you to your hotel in Andermatt about an hour drive away.

Featured climbs:
Furka Pass – 2,429m
Grimsel Pass – 2,164m
Susten Pass – 2,260m

Today the first climb is the Furka, it is famous for having appeared in the James Bond movie ‘Goldfinger’. The Furka is a very similar climb to the Gottard in terms of stats with a 7.3% average for 12km. On the climb, you’ll pass the Belvedere hotel, nestled into the space between the hairpin corner and adjacent to the Rhône glacier. The Furka also boasts some impressive engineering as it is possible to load your vehicle onto a train to skip the pass completely. The journey time is 20 mins but you miss out on the spectacular scenery of the Furka Pass.

The Grimsel Pass is a spectacular mountain road with it zigzags through landscapes of towering granite walls, a few tunnels, hazy blue water reservoirs and past the Grimsel dam with a hydroelectric power plant on top.
The breathtakingly beautiful mountain road in these pristine landscapes with quaint villages and deep valleys make it an absolute cyclists paradise that goes up to 2164 meters above sea level.

The Devil’s Bridge leading across the rough Schöllenen Gorge is another highlight along this route. On the way to the Susten Pass, you will cross no less than 25 bridges and passes through 25 tunnels. You will also have the opportunity to see the famous Stein Glacier. The climb is 27.7 km long with an average gradient of 5.8 %.

Featured climbs:
Nufenen Pass – 2,478 m
Simplon Pass – 2,005 m

We will start our day with a short drive 25 minutes) to Airolo. The first climb today is Nufenen Pass- Switzerland’s second-highest mountain pass (after Umbrail – 2,501m), with an altitude of 2,478 meters. It is a 21.9km long climb and bridges 1314 vertical meters with an average gradient of 6%. The view from the top is spectacular, to say the least, with two small lakes at the top. You can see Finsteraarhorn rising up 4,274 m above sea level to the north, which is the highest mountain in the Bernese Alps, and the ninth highest in the whole of Switzerland.

Our second challenge is Simplon Pass. Aside from the beautiful views, Simplon Pass has a long history. It was even used during the Stone Age. The pass was used as a route for smugglers and mercenaries up until the 17th century because Roman architects considered the narrow Gondo Gorge to be impossible.

The Brig merchant prince Kaspar Jodok von Stockalper began using Simplon Pass around the mid 17th century to bring salt from the Mediterranean on mules backs and the trade made him very rich. It wasn’t until Napoleon wanted to bring his cannons through the pass though, that a road suitable for vehicles was built. Ironically, Napoleon’s power crumbled before his armies could ever actually use the pass. The railway followed just over 100 hundred years later in 1906.

After the ride, we will take a 40-minutes drive to our final hotel next to Lake Maggiore.

Your bike will be packed by our La Fuga mechanic, and you’ll have the chance to relax and unwind with breakfast overlooking the beautiful Lake Maggiore. Your legs will be tired, but what an accomplishment having completed the Switzerland Cycling Tour.

We’ll run shuttles back to Milan airport in plenty of time to catch your flight.