Shimla to Chandigarh 115 km by Road · 3-4 hours · Cab from ₹3,300

The Chandigarh to Shimla road is flat and fast only as far as Pinjore; after Kalka it stops being a highway and becomes a hill road for the remaining eighty kilometres. The climb proper begins just past the Parwanoo toll, where Himachal starts, and the section up through Dharampur to Solan is where the hairpins come one after another, with the toy train line ducking in and out of its tunnels on the slope beside you. Our drivers take chai at Barog, a little short of Solan and roughly the halfway point. From Solan the road runs through pine forest by Kandaghat and Shoghi, and the last few kilometres into Shimla are a one-way system that must be followed as signed. In July and August the hillside near Solan slips and the road can shut; from December to February there is snow on the upper reaches and black ice in the shaded bends below Shimla, so we allow an extra hour. On May and June weekends leave Chandigarh by six to miss the queue at the town entry.