Detour #357: A Joyful Jaunt on the Jaufen Pass, Italy

Photo Mini

Practice your Italian and your German on this border-spanning alpine drive.

Jaufen Pass. It doesn’t sound very Italian, does it? And with good reason. This magical little road is tucked away in a crevice of the South Tirol region, a curious, autonomous province where German and Italian language and culture combine on road signs and in hotel receptions. Practice your best Buongiorno ready for check in and you might be met with a miffed Guten tag in return.

Perhaps we should switch to its alternative name – Passo di Monte Giovo – not least because it can claim to be the most northerly Alpine pass entirely on Italian soil. Where it dwells might be of little concern once you peel off the main thoroughfare and into the first of its hairpins, though. 

I begin in St. Leonhard in Passeier (around 30 miles north of the South Tirol capital, Bolzano), a village whose German resonance is underscored further by its hotel names; Wiesenhof, Ferienhaisl and Fallenbach are not bred from a Romance language. Yet their aesthetics are all unmistakably Alpine and on a sunny day their natural tones contrast so bewitchingly against the verdant green valley, you’d be forgiven for parking up and whiling away your afternoon with a coffee and gelato amongst it all.

Resist the urge, though: the road, and those views, just keep getting better. Starting with a dozen switchbacks. The tight, blind sort that you take calmly, allowing their slower pace to build the anticipation in your belly. It’s a biker’s paradise here – both engine and pedal powered – so it’s better to keep things sensible until you have the visibility ahead to go a bit quicker.

With a stone wall one side and trees on the other, you’re afforded only teasing glimpses of the scenery during your ascent. These initial few miles are narrow, too, making my choice of car – a Mini Cooper S – one I can be pretty smug about. With a mite over 200bhp and a subtler approach to suspension stiffness than a full-bore Cooper Works, it’s an amiable thing, and though O’ll forever crave a manual ‘box on roads like this – Minis are a DCT-only zone nowadays – not worrying about which gear you’re in allows a greater focus on accurately threading the car along this slim but scintillating road.

Around four miles in and the trees drop away and the pass widens. Useful if you’ve got caught behind one of the local buses that wend their way implausibly up and down this route. The hairpins pick up again shortly, but it’s the breathless mix of corners between them that you’ll really enjoy, the brilliantly smooth surface ensuring you can focus fully on balancing your car through each bend. The Cooper S handles tidily and its twin-clutch transmission helps ensure there’s lots of torque for building altitude without fuss.

With the sun shining, the rolling hills around you astonish in their tones; if the weather’s bleaker, you’re not missing out either, the vivid streaks of cloud and rain across the sky providing true theatre. This is an Alpine pass that’s generally open all year, closing overnight in winter but not barriered off for several months like some of the bigger hitters. Yet even in warmer months you should pack a jacket or jumper – the air remains fresh at its 2,094m peak. Time it right and the Edelweißhütte can welcome you in for a coffee and cake as you bask in the Jaufen’s (or Giovo’s…) headline view. 

Then it’s over and down the other side, repeating a similar mixture of slow hairpins and quicker stretches while enjoying the views of a completely different Tirol valley on your descent. At 22 miles overall it’s simple to run back and forth and it’s a joyful road whichever direction you attack it in – and whichever language its signage or locals happen to favour, too.

Or you can tag right onto our Timmelsjoch Detour for a fuller exploration of the Tirol region…

Words Stephen Dobie
Photography Mini / Stephen Dobie

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ROADBOOK

CLASS: Mountain Pass

NAME: Jaufen Pass / Passo di Monte Giovo

ROUTE: St. Leonhard in Passeier to Casateia

COUNTRY: Italy

Distance: 22 Miles

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