ALPS OFFROAD: Most beautiful rides in Piedmont - Maira Varaita to Colle Valcavera

If someone would ask me where paradise is, I would answer that paradise must be a place in the mountains. Not because you're closer to the sky and closer to heaven, but because paradise can only be where your heart beats a bit louder from excitement and astonishment. Let me take you to a place that made my heart sing from joy, to some of the most beautiful valleys of the Alps, to the most stunning roads that you could imagine to travel on a motorcycle. Welcome to the valleys Myra, Stura, and Vareita, and to the breathtaking mountain passes, rich roads, and old military trails that connect this area in the Italian Piedmont region. Got to go travel crew, are you ready to approach an area with me? I always want you to go. We are in the Italian town Del Monte now, and we turn off now to go to a road that leads to a mountain pass called Col Valzavera, I think, and I'm so excited. We finally reached an area that I always had wanted to visit, the land of the valleys Val Stura, Val Grana, Val Myra, and Val Vareita, close to the city Queno in Italy, that are surrounded by some of the most breathtaking peaks, mountain passes, and off-road trails of the Alps. This is, by the way, how I behave if I just want to fly my drone in peace, but get bothered by a travel partner, even though nobody really should talk to me while I fly my beloved drone. So what are you doing now? Landscaping. Okay, is it nice? Is it nice? Very. You're happy with it? Very. And this is how I behave if I ask my travel partner to film me on purpose. How happy are you? We are in the absolutely stunning Italian mountains now, and I think this is here where we basically will ride tomorrow. So I don't know if this is just me, or do you think as well that this is absolutely beautiful? I think these are definitely the most pretty mountains I have seen in a very long time. I just love it. We were on our way to the mountain pass Col Val Zavera, at an altitude of 2,416 meters. And coming from the town De Monte like we did, the road takes you through the Vallone dell'Arma and over another mountain pass, called the Caccia. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I should just be quiet now. I really think it's so beautiful here. I can't remember when I have been at a more stunning place the last time. So I guess I will annoy you because I will always say like, oh God, it's so beautiful, it's so beautiful. But it is. This is the perfect time to quote my travel partner and share some of his eternal wisdom with you guys. My travel partner always says that wherever you go in the mountains, it always feels like the last mountain pass you visited is the most beautiful mountain pass that you have ever seen in your life. The moment you are up there, just you, the road, the mountain, and in this case, also a few cows, is exactly the moment when everything comes together, when the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, when you are exactly where you should be and where you always wanted to be. Like the two passes Col Fauniera and Assisi that we were about to head to next, Col Valzavera is part of the so-called Colli di Queno, a group of mountain passes in the province of Queno in Italy. At an altitude of 2,416 meters, Col Valzavera is not only a pass, but as well a crossroad. From here, you can access the Myra Stura Ridge Road, an old military trail that we wanted to take the next day. But for this day, we decided to head to our accommodation the fastest way possible and therefore took the small road that connects the mountain passes Col Valzavera and Col Fauniera. Wow, this road is very narrow, but super cool right here at the mountain. What an amazing surrounding. I'm happy, I'm not scared of heights. It's going down here on the side quite steeply and oh my God, look at those cars. It sucks if you meet another car here. There is really no space. Yep, it definitely sucks if you get stuck here with a car. I would not like to do these maneuvers here with such a big vehicle. Oh, nice to be on a motorcycle. There is a big confusion about the next pass that we were about to approach due to the fact that people like to call it three different names. Locals often call it Col Queno, named after the capital of the region. Hikers and alpinists prefer the name Col Fauniera because the pass is right at the foot of the mountain at Cima Fauniera. And many people confuse it with the Col di Morti, which is an unpaved off-road pass 700 meters to the west. With 2,481 meters altitude, Col Fauniera is the 10th highest paved mountain pass of the Alps. Look at these sharp rocks that rise up here next to the road. It's like the stairway to heaven, or I don't know, maybe it's all the stairway to hell, depending on what you think heaven and hell look like. From Col Fauniera, there are several options to ride down to the valley. We were on our way to the small village Mamura, though, and the road first took us up to another mountain pass, Col de Sici, with 2,451 meters altitude, the lowest of the three passes we traversed on our route. We are on our way down to the mountain village Mamura now, where I booked a place to stay for the next two nights that I'm super excited about as well. And I think it might be the highlight of all places that we stayed so far. Let's see if this is the right place. My travel partner just went down checking as well to see if we can park somewhere there. Oh my God, I already love this place. They said we can park in their barn here so our bikes are safe overnight. That's the places that you return to as a motorcyclist if you're treated like this. Very, very nice. I indeed immediately fell in love with this place. It takes you back in time and let you experience the ambience of a centuries-old hamlet of the Myra Valley. The accommodations of Tiaglio are being run in the third generation of the family Fulvia and Alberto Galliano, and the hotel is located at the foot of the Galdetta Plateau in the upper part of the Myra Valley at 1,223 meters at the old village road in the community of Mamura. The population was once 1,000 citizens. Now only 25 remain. Tiaglio is not only one single building. Traditional former farmhouses have been restored and now house the rooms, the restaurant, the sauna, and the garage around the village fountain. Every room in the Tiaglio has its own unique layout. No two rooms are the same. In Italy, this type of hotel is called albergo diffuso. If you stay at this albergo diffuso, breakfast and dinner are included, and Tiaglio offers a traditional Piedmont cuisine. Every evening, the bell is rang and all hotel guests gather for dinner at the same time and enjoy several courses of traditional and delicious food from the region. Does this sound too good to be true? Here comes another reason to stay. After having been on the road for more than two weeks, we finally were able to wash and hang our laundry. We're riding to the village Carnusio now from where the Myra Stura Ridge Road starts that we came here to drive. There are several restrictions, though, when you can drive it. It's not allowed on weekends, but today is Thursday, so we should be fine. It turned out, though, that we were not fine. The region just had changed its laws a few days ago, and from the year 2021, it is prohibited to drive the road from 9th of August to 20th of August. Let's turn around and go to the side. The Myra Stura Ridge Road is an old military road that connects Col Valzavera, that we visited the day before, and Carnusio with an easy accessible and easy-to-ride gravel road. That's why we had chosen it due to my travel partner's foot. So it was a real bummer that we had to change our plans again. I have to admit, this really sucks. Today is August the 12th, and it's prohibited to ride the Myra Stura since August the 9th, so we were only a few days late. That's a real bummer, but we will ride to another mountain pass now. There's another gravel road here in the area that we want to have a look at. I think it's more difficult than the Myra Stura, so I don't know if it's smart to do it with the foot of my travel partner, but we don't know what else to do, so we will go there now. On our way to the next mountain pass, named Col du St. Pierre, we came over some more blocked roads, but as well some nice villages and beautiful views. So even though I was pretty disappointed that we couldn't ride the Myra Stura Ridge Road, you really can't be mad for too long if you have views like this, and we will see if we can drive this other road. I'm sure the surrounding of it are amazing too. It's hard to miss Col du St. Pierre because of its extravagant statue of the Holy Mary that is supposed to protect all travelers. At an altitude of 2,284 meters, Col du St. Pierre is not only an important connection of the area to all its surrounding mountain passes, but also connects the Valley of Myra and the Vareita Valley. For us, it was as well the beginning of our next adventure. Okay, we will see. 30 kilometers. 30 kilometers, okay. 30. Okay. 30 kilometers. Thank you. Let's do this. If the road gets too bad, we will turn around, but for now it feels very easy. I unfortunately didn't really read up about this road before, but I know that there are several sections and I actually think we are on the easiest section. So should be all good and not too bad. I hate to admit it, but this was one of the days where I had done my research wrong. We were not on the easiest part of the road, but of course on the most difficult one. So there just were a few parts here that were weirdly a bit sandy. So traction was not that great and I slided a little bit, but here it is nice now. I hope the road stays like this. Wow, this view. That's why it's called Myra, Vareita. No, it's called Vareita Myra Ridge Road. Always the best views when you're kind of like close to a mountain or on its ridge. The Vareita Myra Ridge Road, or in German, Vareita Myra Kammstraße, actually has the name Strada dei Canoni and is a 50-kilometer track between Val Vareita and Myra to Col della Bioccia at the foot of the mountain Pelvo d'Elva that is 3,064 meters high. The Vareita Myra Ridge Road rises from 600 to over 2,300 meters above sea level and is an old military track. It was built in 1744 by Carlo Emanuele III in order to pass faster and safer over the Alps with his troops. Today, the Vareita Myra Ridge Road invites nature lovers, mountain bikers, motorcycle riders, and 4x4 drivers to enjoy its solitude and breathtaking views. I have to tell you guys, I'm normally not scared of heights at all, but man, the mountain drops down here next to the road very steeply. You really don't want to fall here. And to be honest, the road is not that good. So normally I wouldn't mind this road at all, but with this sheer drop here, it makes me actually a little nervous. That's why I drive as well on this left part of the road, on the left lane, to have a little bit more distance to the drop. I know it's hilarious, but it would make me really nervous to ride on the right side. So the road is really not that bad. The most dangerous parts of the road is probably the places where you don't see. Now it's not so early anymore, and we met quite a lot of mountain bikers and people with e-bikes riding the road here. So it's kind of dangerous because they are not so slow, but it's also not so fast, and you don't really see them. And since I still don't want to go to the outside lane, even in tight curves, I have to be very careful not to hit one of those bicyclists here. Oh my God. Look at this ambitious lady. She's gonna hate me because I'm using her lane. Oh my God. Sorry, sorry. But as well, not very nice, the swearing e-bikers. I mean, it was not so big a deal for her to change the lane, in my opinion. ♪ It's nothing new, but it's so good to see you. ♪ At one point, the descent of the road started, and objectively, the road probably got even worse than before, but I was happy because I finally could ride in the right lane again without being nervous about falling off a cliff. Instead of the Myra Stura, we now decided to drive the Myra Varaita. And to our big surprise, this road is much more difficult than the Myra Stura, that people told us already. So we're now both sweaty. You're sweaty too? Very. I think regarding the road, this part is probably the most difficult part we did so far because it's the steepest part and there are quite a few hairpins and it's very bumpy, but I actually don't mind because the rocks are not loose and I can more or less just let the bike roll down. So yes, I definitely prefer going down this road than I would have going up. So just in case someone of you is looking for the more convenient solution to do this Varaita-Myra Ridge Road, the way we did it is for sure the way to go if you want to have a convenient ride. From Kol Birone, you have two options. Either you continue the Varaita-Myra all the way to the town Venasca in the north or choose to descend to San Damiano Macra in the valley Myra. We chose the road to San Damiano because we wanted to end up as far south as possible to ride back to our hotel over roads that we had not done before. So this last part of the road got much more easier than the first part and hopefully it stays like this and soon we're gonna be down there in the village, probably somewhere down there. Road gets much more easy here now and every now and then you see as well houses. It feels really like we're back to civilization now. That's it. Hello, asphalt. What a nice ride this was. Really amazing. We're back on asphalt and I think we both feel like we accomplished something today. Don't we? So proud of you and me. And of you. This whole region here is very funny because everywhere you go, you need to take some of these mountain passes that we did yesterday and this morning, but we don't want to go back straight but take another detour to a mountain pass that we have not done before. From Zandamiano Macra, we first turned east on route SP422, which was not the most scenic road that we ever rode. But then at Tronero, we turned south and then west on SP23 and headed right to Castel Magno, a commune that stretches all the way to Col Faunera that we already visited the day before. So when we have done this road here, we have done pretty much all accessible passes here in the area. I'm still very sad about the Mayra Stura Ridge Road that is closed, but we have a reason to come back. And if we would have been able to ride the Mayra Stura, I'm not so sure we would have done the Mayra Varadra in addition. So one door closes and the other one opens and I'm very happy about the outcome. And to be honest, as long as you are in the stunning mountains surrounding the Mayra and Varadra Valley, there are no wrong choices. Thank you for joining one of my favorite days of riding of this whole adventure. If you liked today's roads as much as I did, leave a comment and give this video a thumbs up or hit the bell button to subscribe and finally become a real part of the Got2Go adventure crew. The next episode will take us over some mountain passes back to France and from there back to Italy, this time on some bigger paved roads. Tune in next Thursday to not miss out on the next mountainous ride.