Our second bad night's sleep in 3 days doesn't put us in the best of moods this morning. We don't bother to visit the farm shop before setting off for the High Alps. The road from Pinerolo starts as a gentle, continual climb, but soon we are passing through small towns with chalet buildings and overhanging balconies which are a bit of a hazard in a tall vehicle.

Further on the bends get tighter and when we come up behind a tractor the locals get impatient and overtake with no care at all. The mountains tower all around and deep valleys drop away below us. Pale green swathes through the trees pick where out the ski runs will be when snow comes, but even now there are small pockets of white on the high cols.

We reach Sestrierre, over 2000m up, a satellite venue for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. There are two cylindrical tower blocks may have been the athletes' accommodation and a tall, stylised, steel fir tree. Colourful flower displays decorate the hotels and ski shops which are all around. The road falls a bit the climbs steeply with hairpin bends, before a dramatic 3rd and 2nd gear descent into Cesana Torinese where we stop for lunch. On the way in the road is smothered with Giro d'Italia grafitti and the entry to the town is marked with a finishing line for one of the stages. While we are there a Team Sky car goes by with a small party of riders in training.

Our next stage, which crosses the French border, where we are stopped but not required to show passports, is the steep bendy climb with a few tunnels to Briancon, Europe's highest large town. We pass through a number of small resort towns, formulaic rows of small chalets and hotels with ski lifts and hire shops.

As we turn off towards our destination there is a 'Road Closed Beyond Grave' sign which we suspect is because today is Bastille Day. We reach Le Monetiere les Bains and find the aire, a large flat tarmac area nestling in a bowl of mountains that rise to nearly 4000ft. Opposite is a small plain of yellowing grass waving in the breeze. It is 27C but the alpine wind is cool and refreshing. Nearby a set of chairlifts flies silently through the trees on the mountainside while other sets sit motionless right up to the top.

The Municipal Policewoman arrives to collect the €5.20 fee and tells us the road closure is due to a collapsed tunnel. Now we have to rethink our route.

Chicken salad supper as the mountains change colour in the sunset, then an early, cool and peaceful night.