Winter Tour (Alpine Royale)

Four nights of winter driving across the Alps, from Bavaria to Lake Garda, with the price quoted on application.

The fleet here includes high-performance SUVs as well as supercars, which is the sensible answer to Alpine roads in winter: the passes that stay open do so with salt and snow on them, and a car with four driven wheels makes the difference between a tour and a recovery.

The route is a long arc through the Tyrolean Alps, then the Val Mustair Biosphere Reserve and the Swiss National Park, the oldest in the Alps and the only one in Switzerland. The crossings at Livigno, Bernina and Aprica follow, all three of them old trade routes rather than modern roads, with Lake Garda at the finish, which is mild enough in winter for the lemon trees to survive. The operator picks lesser-known roads rather than the famous ones, which in winter is as much a practical decision as an aesthetic one.

Access to a rotating fleet of current supercars and winter-specific SUVs for the driving days is included, along with hand-picked boutique hotels throughout and dining at high-end restaurants; international flights are not. Five days in the Alps in winter is a different proposition from the summer tours: fewer passes are open, the light is shorter and the hotels are ski properties. Which roads are driveable depends on the week, so the itinerary flexes, and winter tyres are a legal requirement across much of this route. For anyone who has driven the Alps in summer, the same roads under snow are an entirely different trip.