Savoie

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The Savoie is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Southeastern France.

Together with the Haute-Savoie, it is one of the two departments of the historical region of Pays de Savois or Savoie-Mont Blanc.

Its prefecture is Chambéry, Albertville (Tarentaise) and Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne (Maurienne) are its two subprefectures.

It borders the departments of the Haute-Savoie, the Ain, the Isère and the Hautes-Alpes, as well as Italy’s Aosta Valley and Metropolitan City of Turin.

Savoie hosted the 1992 Winter Olympics, based in Albertville with ski events at Tarentaise and Beaufortain.

Passes out of the Savoie:

• Col de Tamié, Col des Aravis, Col des Leschaux and Col du Sapenay into the Haute-Savoie
• Col du Petit Saint-Bernard, crossing into Italy from Bourg-Saint-Maurice
• Col du Mont-Cenis, also into Italy from Lanslebourg Mont-Cenis, but the French summit is about 13 kilometers from the Italian border
• Col du Galibier into the Hautes-Alpes
• Col de la Croix de Fer into the Isère

I’ve created “subs” of the Savoie for the

• Tarentaise Valley
• Maurienne Valley
• Beaufortain Valley
• Grésivaudan Valley (shared with the Isère)

My Tour de France 2024 started and ended in Chambéry, cycling two cols in that area:

• Col du Granier (1,132m) from Chambéry in the Prologue
• Col de l’Épine (985m) from Chambéry in the Epilogue

And although there are some more cols, I will likely not be visiting that part of the Savoie again…

Map with the main climbs / passes in the wider area:

Background image: Florian Pépellin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons