Col de Tende

The Tende Pass, located at 1 871 m above sea level, connects Tende to Cuneo in the Southern Alps. The pass itself is in French territory for historical reasons.

The pass separates the Maritime Alps (Mercantour-Argentera Massif) from the Ligurian Alps and connects the Roya Valley to the south with the Vermenagna Valley to the north.

The Tende Pass road tunnel is a tunnel located under the Tende pass at an altitude of 1,270 meters. It is often confused with the Tende pass 600 meters higher.

The track, on the French side, starts about 200 meters before the entrance of the tunnel and the cover disappears rather quickly, to reach a total of 46 vertiginous laces at the top, over a length of 7.5 km, with 800 m of altitude difference ( almost 11% on average). On the northern slope, only the last 600 meters in French territory of a very narrow road are not paved. In Italian territory, the road is paved. This road starts about 1.5 km before the tunnel. It has a smaller number of laces (a dozen) but are no less impressive.

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