Actor-director Justin Theroux and friend blast their way down an Alpine route forged by the Little Corporal 

In March 1815, Napoleon, weary of exile, set off from the island of Elba and landed in Nice. Whipping a small and loyal army like sled dogs, he trudged his way in six days to Grenoble on what is now the Route Napoléon (or the RN86, as it is dreadfully and unromantically named). I take it for granted that Napoleon would rather have done it in June, when I did, and on a Ducati motorbike, as I did. Having traveled through much of the French countryside, I found this relatively short stretch of road—only 230 miles long—some of the most splendid and varied terrain I've ever ridden on.

Day One, 250 Miles: Bologna to Sierre
But first, my good friend Chris Reilly, a private investigator from New York, and I had to pick up our motorcycles in Italy, so we decided it would make geographic sense to trace Napoleon's steps backward. Ignoring our jet lag, we stopped to pay our respects where our own Ducatis (a pair of monster 900s back home in New York) were born: at the Ducati factory, a large white gleaming cube on the outskirts of Bologna. We were treated to a tour there of not only the factory but also the museum it houses, where we sidled up to some of the fastest, winningest bikes on earth. As we tore ourselves away, we were handed a set of keys to a pair of gorgeous bikes, a silver 992-cc ST3 sport tourer and a grunty 620 Multistrada. The bikes were vastly different in style, but both were well engineered for the Alpine terrain of steep, knuckly climbs and ribbony gauntlets and passes that awaited us. From Bologna, we made a straight shot north through Milan, wound through the Italian lakes region, and ended up in the belly button (most certainly an outie) of the Swiss Alps, in the sleepy town of Sierre. Clipping along Route 9 at 100 miles per hour for about 25 miles outside the town of Brig, in the Rhône Valley, I was glad we'd decided to do the trip on bikes. Sycamore trees and undulating fields of wildflowers whizzed past a background of craggy, snowcapped cliffs exploding skyward.

Having ridden motorcycles mostly in the United States, I found that there were some serious etiquette disparities here in Europe—almost all of them in favor of the motorcyclist. I had to dispel any macho biker notions I'd arrived with: Here, motorcycles are viewed as efficient transport, and more than a few times I saw women my grandmother's age gently leaning and whipping their bikes through the streets in expert fashion.

Landing in Sierre in one piece, we were eager to check in to our hotel and plot our next day of riding. After being shooed away from the hotel's restaurant by a fussy maître d' who would not accommodate us in his virtually empty establishment, we walked outside and followed the sound of raucous music in the warm night air. We soon found ourselves at a small outdoor music festival where we were told that we would be able to find something to eat. The food consisted of one course, a local dish called raclette: melted cheese on a slice of bread, placed atop what could best be described as gruel (something between grits and a soupy corn bread). We were about to dig in when a toothy towheaded man introduced himself in heavily accented English as Frederick. Even in our full riding leathers we obviously stood out, and he quizzed us on our travels, sharing bits of local history. As if to prove the inestimable cultural contributions of Sierre, he held up his sagging paper plate of melted cheese: "Raclette, this dish, come to us from here. Where we are, right now!"