Route Napoléon driving road map

by Sidney van den Boogaard

History rarely comes with this many good corners. In March 1815, fresh from his escape from Elba, Napoleon marched north from Golfe-Juan through the hills of Provence; in 1932 the road along his route was given his name. The stretch from Grasse to Castellane is the one drivers and riders rave about: 62 kilometres over four cols, topping out at the Col de Valferrière, 1,169 metres up. Fast, flowing bends alternate with bare limestone plateaus and wide views over the hills, before the road drops into Castellane, the gateway to the Verdon. Perfect above the desk of anyone who likes their history in third gear.

This work is part of the Petrolhead Roads collection: the world's finest driving and riding roads, from coastal routes and mountain roads to legendary ribbons of curves. Each road is drawn from the real route and finished in the same calm, graphic style, with the elevation profile and, along the bottom, the length, the road number and the facts that made the road famous.

The road is drawn from OpenStreetMap data (© OpenStreetMap contributors) and the profile from Copernicus elevation data. A great gift for anyone who would rather drive a great road than the motorway.