Mangart & Mangart Road

At 2,679 m, the Mangart is one of the highest mountains in Slovenia, on the border with Italy. To its saddle leads the Mangart Road, at around 2,072 m the highest road in Slovenia, through several tunnels and tight hairpins. From the top the view reaches far over the Julian Alps to the Triglav.

Highlights

• Mangart (2,679 m), one of Slovenia's highest
• Mangart Road, the country's highest road
• Tunnels and tight hairpins
• Wide view over the Julian Alps

Good to know

Practical info

Background & History

The Mangart rises on the border between Slovenia and Italy and, at over 2,600 metres, is among the highest peaks of the Julian Alps, a rugged pyramid of pale limestone that towers visibly over the borderland for miles around. The mountain is famous above all for the Mangart Road, one of the highest-lying high-mountain roads in Slovenia, which leads in bold hairpins and through tunnels blasted into the rock to a saddle just below the summit and opens up breathtaking views of the surrounding rock walls.

This road was built in the interwar period by the Italian army, when the border ran here and the area held military importance, and to this day it ranks among the most impressive panoramic roads of the Eastern Alps. From the saddle, demanding paths and via ferratas lead to the summit, from which the view stretches far across the Julian Alps to the Triglav. The Mangart and its neighbouring peaks consist of massive Dachstein limestone, which once formed as reef rock in a primeval sea and was lifted to airy heights during the folding of the Alps. Anyone driving the Mangart Road experiences a rare combination of engineering skill, border history and the raw grandeur of a high-Alpine limestone massif.