Driving the Stelvio Pass, the second highest mountain pass in the Alps, connecting Italy with Switzerland, was not part of the plan. In fact, I had read about Stelvio and decided it sounded too scary and dangerous to attempt. And then, while leaving Bolzano and heading towards St Moritz, we started seeing signs for Passo Dello Stelvio, and it got closer and closer, until I decided I had been brought there for a reason and I had to check it out.
I had a moment of panic just as the ascent was about to start and I pulled over and started feverishly reading reviews of the drive on my phone. I felt butterflies in my stomach and my heart started pounding. And without realizing it, the questions I was googling started getting more and more macabre. "How dangerous is the Stelvio Pass", "Are there guardrails on the Stelvio Pass", "Accidents on the Stelvio Pass." And then, I realized, OBVIOUSLY, googling these kinds of questions was only going to make me more scared. "Stop googling and just start driving. One turn at a time. Keep your eye on the road and don't look down." My dad told me to drive as close as possible to the mountain and as far away from the dropoff side, even if it meant encroaching on the lane of oncoming traffic. "Anyone coming down the mountain is going to be driving even more cautiously than you," he told me.
About halfway up the mountain, there was a line of cars stopped because the road ahead was exceedingly narrow and a tour bus was inching down the road. Seeing other tourists gathered on the desolate road made us feel less alone. Soon, we reached the summit, 9,045 feet above sea level. We found a makeshift tourist village up there, with restaurants and souvenir shops. I had a slice of pizza which was one of the best I've ever had.
It was getting dark by the time we started our descent into Switzerland. They had told us the drive down wasn't as scary as the drive up but it was still pretty intimidating. Long narrow roads looping around mountains, with sheer dropoffs, gradually making our way down thousands of feet in elevation, astounded by the road we had driven so far.