Driving the San Bernardino Pass: South to North Guide
The pass most drivers never see
Every year, around 2.5 million vehicles rush under the San Bernardino Pass through a 6.6 km tunnel and never know what they have missed. Above them, the old road climbs over the mountain in a ribbon of hairpins to 2,066 metres, past a quiet lake, a bare granite summit and the border between two languages.
Since the tunnel opened in 1967, the pass road has belonged to the people who choose to take the long way round. That is reason enough to take it.
This is the drive from south to north: starting among the palms and castles of Italian-speaking Switzerland, climbing over the top, and coming down into the German-speaking Rhine valley. It is about 100 km from Bellinzona to Thusis, and you could drive it in two hours. Give it a day.
The drive, south to north
1. Bellinzona: three castles to start the day
Start with a coffee in Bellinzona, the capital of Ticino. Its three medieval castles (Castelgrande, Montebello and Sasso Corbaro) are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the walls once ran right across the valley floor. They tell you why this route matters: for centuries, whoever held this valley controlled the road north over the Alps.
Leave the motorway at the first chance and take the old cantonal road north into the Misox valley (Mesolcina in Italian). It runs alongside the Moesa river through stone villages and chestnut woods. The road is quieter, slower and much better company.
2. Soazza: a village worth the detour
A few kilometres before Mesocco, turn off for Soazza. The terraced old village sits above the valley road, so most people drive past it. Park up, walk the narrow lanes between the stone houses and look back down the valley.
3. Mesocco Castle: Switzerland's largest ruin
You will see it before you reach it. The Castello di Mesocco stands on a great rock in the middle of the valley, forcing the river round it. It dates from the 12th century and is one of the largest castle ruins in Switzerland. It is free to visit and open all year.
Below it, the small church of Santa Maria del Castello holds a cycle of medieval frescoes showing the twelve months of the year: peasants at work, knights on horseback, life in the valley 500 years ago. Allow an hour for both.
4. The climb to San Bernardino village
Above Mesocco the road starts to climb properly, in long bends and then tighter hairpins, to the village of San Bernardino at around 1,600 metres. In the 19th century this was a spa resort for wealthy families from northern Italy, who came for the mineral water. The pass takes its name from the village chapel, built in the 15th century in honour of St Bernardine of Siena.
This is where the motorway disappears into the tunnel. From here on, the road is yours.
Near the village, look for the Pont Nef over the Moesa. It replaced the Vittorio Emanuele bridge, named after the King of Sardinia, which collapsed in 1864. Sardinia paid for much of the pass road in the 1820s, because it wanted a trade route from Genoa to northern Europe that Austria did not control.
5. The summit: a lake on the border of two worlds
The last few kilometres climb through a strange, beautiful landscape of rounded granite humps and small pools, shaped by glaciers. At the top, at 2,066 metres, sits Lago Moesola, a cold, clear lake under the pyramid of Piz Uccello.
Stop here. The summit is a watershed: water on the south side flows to the Po and the Adriatic, water on the north side to the Rhine and the North Sea. It is also a language border. You drove up in Italian; you will drive down in German.
The first hospice was built here in 1824–25, soon after the road opened. Check ahead if you are counting on food at the top; opening times are seasonal.
6. The descent to Hinterrhein
The northern side is the better drive. The road drops in a tight series of hairpins, engineered in the 1820s to keep clear of the avalanche slopes, down to the valley floor at Hinterrhein. The views across the Rheinwald valley open up as you go.
Hinterrhein was settled by the Walser, German-speaking farmers who crossed the Alps in the 13th century. The village is small and quiet. Just below it, the young Rhine is barely more than a stream.
7. Splügen: the old pass village
Follow the valley east to Splügen, where the road from the San Bernardino meets the road from the Splügen Pass into Italy. For centuries merchants and travellers stopped here before the next crossing, and the village still has its grand old stone houses and inns from the days of the mule trains. It is the best place on the route to stay the night.
8. Sufnersee, Rofla and the Viamala Gorge
The final stretch north follows the Hinterrhein down through a run of gorges. Past the Sufnersee reservoir, stop at the Rofla Gorge, where a path takes you behind a waterfall.
The last stop is the best. At the Viamala Gorge, near Thusis, the river has cut a gorge hundreds of metres deep, and the road builders of 1818–1823 hung the road across its walls. Walk down the steps to the bottom of the gorge for the view up. Then drive on to Thusis, where the valley opens out and the drive ends.
Know before you go
- When it is open. The pass road closes for winter and usually reopens in late May or June, then closes again with the first heavy snow in November. The tunnel below is open all year. Check the Graubünden road reports before you set off, as the pass also has occasional night closures for roadworks.
- Which direction. South to north saves the best for last: the hairpins down to Hinterrhein, and the gorges beyond.
- The vignette. You need the Swiss motorway vignette (CHF 40 for 2026) for the A13 motorway sections. If you stay on the old cantonal and pass roads the whole way, you do not, but most people join the motorway at some point.
- The road itself. It is fully surfaced and two lanes for most of its length, but the hairpins on the northern side are tight. Expect cyclists and motorbikes on summer weekends, and go early for an empty road.
- Make it a loop. From Splügen, the Splügen Pass climbs south into Italy and down to Chiavenna, near Lake Como. Drive back to Bellinzona via Lake Como and Lugano and you have a two-day loop with two passes and two countries.
Take the long way round
The tunnel is quicker. The pass will give you a castle, a lake on the roof of the Alps and a road built two centuries ago by people who wanted to get somewhere badly enough to blast it out of the rock. That trade is the whole reason we started Stelvio: the drive is the point.
Planning a bigger trip? The San Bernardino makes a good extra day on our Stelvio Pass road trip: it is under an hour south of Chur, which that route passes through.