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Home to Alpine mountains and glacial lakes, the geography of Northern Italy really is something you need to witness with your own eyes to grasp the pure beauty of it. In the midst of it all, is a road once claimed by Top Gear in 2008 to be the “Greatest Driving Road in the World". This road, the highest paved road in the Eastern Alps with an elevation of 2,757m above sea level, is called the Stelvio Pass.

With claims of being the “greatest driving road in the world", this pass had a lot of hype around it. Whilst planning our Road Trip around Europe, it was a road that we wanted to ensure we experienced first-hand. We'd planned our hotels to be in locations which allowed us to pass through the Alps and drive the famed stretches of tarmac; from a hotel in Vallorcine, France to a B&B just the other side of Lake Como, Italy. The issue that we had was that due to the pass being so high, it's closed for a significant proportion of the year due to snow and ice blocking the way. Unfortunately, there aren't many sites where you can reliably see the status of passes and when they're expected to open. Therefore, we decided to drive toward Stelvio and if it was closed, we had an alternative route to follow.

As we got closer to the start of the pass, driving through the valleys we flew past a sign saying that the Stelvio Pass is open. This came as a shock to me and I had to do a double-take. I was then straight onto the radio, letting the others know that the pass is open, and we can experience what we really came to the Alps for. We agreed to stop at the next available opportunity and work out the rest of our day's route now that we were going to use the Stelvio Pass.

As we were in Switzerland, our route to the Stelvio Pass included a 13km route through the forests of Switzerland from Santa Maria Val Müstair to cross the border and onto Stelvio. This road was lovely; similar to Route Napoleon in France with the trees all around. You can sense that you're climbing up and up, however without any steep drops and with trees shrouding the view, it's difficult to really tell how high we were. (This is where Gavin radio's through to Scott to get a height check from an app on his phone).

Over the border into Italy and we're now aware of how high we really are. There's a whopping load of snow either side of the road. Due to the pass not being open for very long, the majority of the tourist traffic hadn't joined us in the attack of Stelvio. This made for a relatively clear run with people who were holding us up being kind enough to duck out of the way for us to continue our ascent as soon as possible. The higher we went, the more snow there was and the greater the drop off the side. The trees were no longer here to save us if we made a mistake; you'd have time to phone your insurance company on the way down.

Finally at the top, we were greeted with a vast amount of people (mainly bikers) who had made their way to the top of this famous pass. We found a place to stop together and got a few pictures. We of course left our mark at the top with a Probably Nitrous sticker! We were keen to carry on enjoying this incredible road (and with it being very cold at the top) we jumped back into our cars and started our descent.

If the way up was good, the way down was simply incredible. The views across the valley were incredible and my brakes (which had been squealing the whole time…because racecar) managed to generate enough heat to be quiet for the first time all trip, their stopping power simply incredible.

Hairpin after hairpin, we counted up the numbered stones which lined the road. Power came second to how big your dangly bits were: the bravest got to the bottom the quickest. There were tens of brave cyclists, in various states of disrepair, battling their way up. We all agreed that they were out of their minds and we'd never be able to do anything like that.

Halfway down the pass there was suddenly a traffic jam. We couldn't understand how there could be a traffic jam on the way down one of the highest passes in the Alps… Until Gavin came over the radio to tell us that a lorry had got itself beached on one of the steep hairpin turns. How it even got that far, we'll never know.

Spitting us out at the bottom, Stelvio left a lasting impression on every single one of us. The tunnels, the views, the challenge. It really did live up to expectations. However, I can only imagine how busy it gets during peak season. Definitely make sure you experience this pass for yourself if you're ever nearby.