We drove back to the UK from Lake Maggiore over the Simplon Pass. We had driven into Italy via the Frejus Tunnel but wanted to be in the fresh air for our return journey. The drive north-westwards from the top end of Lake Maggiore was beautiful but the road surface was not so good. Our poor BMW convertible was heavily shaken by potholes and badly maintained joints over the bridges. 80kph was plenty fast enough, and provided the time to take evasive action. The climb up to the Swiss border...

Our road trip in Oct 2017 was going from Switzerland to Italy. It was a wonderful experience to go through the Simplon Pass as you can see scenic and beautiful landscapes of snow covered mountains...and the ups and downs of the mountains. It did not disappoint... We were using Google map and it kept pointing us to go through train shuttle for our car which would have been much faster, so we had to ask for direction to drive through the mountains instead of train shuttle.

The Simplon Pass at 6,578 feet, is a high mountain pass between the Pennine Alps and the Lepontine Alps in Switzerland. So that's WHERE it is. It's symbolically important and the Simplon Tunnel built beneath the vicinity of the pass saves traffic lots of time. But it's high above the tree line so it's bare, and the wind whistles through the mountain saddles, so it is cold and windy. The Statue of the Standing Eagle symbolizes 'Flying Free'.