Brig is a small town with a big palace, and its position at the foot of the Simplon Pass gives it a significance out of proportion to its size. It sits in the upper Rhône valley in the canton of Valais, where the river runs west to Lake Geneva, and a route over the mountains to Italy has existed here since Roman times. The Stockalperschloss, the biggest private residence in Switzerland when it was completed in the late seventeenth century, was built by Kaspar Jodok von Stockalper, a merchant who controlled the Simplon trade and became the richest man in the country. With its three onion-domed towers, named for the Three Kings, it dominates the old town and is open to visitors.
The Simplon Pass road is the reason riders come. Napoleon had a carriage road built over it between 1801 and 1805, so that his armies could cross to Italy, and it is still one of the great engineering works of the age. The road climbs in broad curves out of the Rhône valley, passes through galleries and over a famous bridge at the Ganter gorge, and crosses the top at about two thousand metres. The surface is good, the bends are open and consistent, and the views toward the Bernese and Valais Alps are huge. The pass is usually open from about May to October, and sections can be icy in the shoulder seasons, so check road conditions before you go.
South of the border lies the Italian valley of the Ossola, and Domodossola is a pleasant place for lunch. The Simplon Tunnel, a railway tunnel opened in 1906, runs far beneath the pass and was the longest tunnel in the world for much of the twentieth century. Naters, just across the river from Brig, is the starting point for the Aletsch Glacier region, the largest ice stream in the Alps.
Brig and Naters together have fuel, supermarkets and plenty of restaurants, and the town is a handy base. The Rhône valley can be hot in summer and windy in the afternoon, so start the pass early.
Raclette, melted local cheese scraped onto potatoes, is the Valais speciality, and a glass of Fendant, a crisp white wine, goes with it.