To Tuscany and back in a Jaguar XKR-S
Discussion
I found it interesting and useful to read other reports of road trips here when planning mine, so thought I'd return the favour and post up some notes from my recent 2,600 mile trip to Italy and back.
This is just the highlights - a more detailed report can be found here on my blog.
After I bought my Jaguar XKR-S in May, I was keen to take it to Europe and give it a proper run. I love Italy, and Tuscany in particular so it didn't take me long to decide on my destination which would be San Quirico d'Orcia. The most time-consuming part though was working out how to get there and back!
I've done a few driving trips through the Alps before, but had never driven the Stelvio Pass so was keen to finally tick that off the list. As well as doing some of my favourite roads, I also wanted to visit a few places that weren't high on the list of great driving roads, but were places that meant something to me. So after many evenings spent planning my route, I came up with this:
London - Reims - Winterthur - Bormio - San Quirico d'Orcia - St. Moritz - Brienz - London
So after work on Tuesday evening I left London and headed for Reims for the night, and after a good night's rest in the Ibis hotel I set off after breakfast and headed straight for the pit lane of the old circuit on the D27 towards Gueux. I stopped there for a bit to take a few photos, and then headed East towards Verdun.
I wanted to avoid motorways as much as possible, so headed along what is known as the Voie de la Liberté (Liberty Road). This is the route followed by George S. Patton’s 3rd Army after D-Day, during the liberation of France and is marked by large marker posts situated every 1km.
I followed the D931 out of Reims, which became the D3, and then the D603. As I'd spent a bit longer than I expected taking photos in the Reims pits, I decided to hop onto the A4 motorway just past Verdun and continued on it until Strasbourg, then a few miles later, I was crossing the border into Germany, and on the B500 heading south to the Black Forest.
I was a bit underwhelmed by the 500, but partly this was due to it being quite busy so it was quite frustrating just trundling along behind trucks and buses, and even with a quick car it wasn't always possible to overtake due to the twisty roads running through the trees.
I had planned a quick detour before I got to my hotel for the night, and headed into Schaffhausen to visit the IWC watch factory. Unfortunately they had just closed by the time I got there, but I managed to get a couple of photos of my watch outside it's birthplace - much to the amusement of a couple of people walking past who must have thought I was strange taking photos of a watch on my car!
Not too long later I was checking in to my hotel in Winterthur - the cheap and cheerful Budget Ibis (and I thought the normal Ibis was budget enough!). I encountered a slight design flaw with my car at this point, as the glossy piano black top of the dash console looks very smart, but is very slippery - and there is a gap in the console just above it which is perfectly positioned to let parking tickets slide into it if you brake! So I had to explain that my car had eaten the parking ticket before I could be let out the following morning.
The plan for today was to head up to the Austrian Alps, via the Silvretta Pass and to stop for lunch at Ischgl - somewhere I've skied at many times so was curious to see what it was like during the summer. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great, and it was raining as I headed towards the Alps. Fortunately though it was still dry as I got near to the Silvretta Pass although was very cloudy as I started to climb up it.
Luckily the cloud cleared as I went over the other side, and it was really nice road to drive - although I'm not sure it is worth paying the €15 fee to go over it.
After a bite to eat in Ischgl, I got back on the road towards Italy and the Stelvio Pass. On the way however I went past a curious sight - a church tower poking out the top of a lake! This is apparently one of the only visible signs of Curon Venosta - a small Northern Italian town that was flooded to make way for an artificial lake.
After some more driving, I eventually got to the Stelvio Pass which I was looking forward to, but with a bit of trepidation as I'd heard it was quite busy and narrow, and that's not what you want with expensive carbon fibre bits on your new car!
The pass was pretty much what I expected, with lots and lots of tight hairpin bends some of which needed full lock, and one or two even needed a quick 3 point turn but my fears of grounding out my front splitter were unfounded. There were quite a few cyclists heading up and down as well as motor cyclists who seemed quite happy to risk losing their heads as they sped round blind bends, and there were even a couple of buses too which meant stopping and waiting on slightly wider parts of the road until they went past.
Eventually though I reached the top and took the obligatory photo looking down!
After stopping for the night in Bormio, the next day saw me heading down to Italy via the Gavia Pass, then down past Lake Garda. The Gavia pass was awesome, although very narrow and exposed in places, and the road surface was pretty poor compared to other passes. It was well worth the drive though, as the views at the top were amazing.
The rest of the drive to Lake Garda was good too, especially the stretch along the SP421, and around Lake Molveno.
The drive down the west cost of Lake Garda was pretty tedious though, with the single lane road and lots of traffic meaning a slow and boring drive down to Brescia. From there, I hopped onto the motorway and headed to Tuscany where I'd be staying for the next couple of days.
In Tuscany I had a few sight-seeing things I wanted to do, so didn't do a great deal of driving - although some of the roads I did find were great fun!
After leaving Tuscany I headed north back up to the Alps, and drove to St Moritz where I'd be staying for the night. Most of the journey was pretty boring, so it was good to get back into the mountains although the Swiss customs officials took a lot of interest in the car, and made me wait for about 15 minutes while they checked all my documentation.
The next morning I set off for my day of passes! First on the list was the Albula Pass which was just a few miles away from St. Mortiz. This was awesome - definitely one to repeat!
After reaching Thusis, I decided to take the "13" road rather than the main road with the same name. This mostly ran next to the A13, however was narrower and a lot more twisty - however it did take you through some very pretty Swiss villages with cobbled streets.
Next up was the San Bernardino Pass which was excellent as well, and that whole stretch was a great drive down to Arbedo-Castione where I took the motorway north for a short stretch until Biasca. There I turned off and headed towards Disentis which was pretty average until Blenio where the road got a lot more enjoyable.
From here I headed towards Andermatt, and up across the Devil's Bridge and on to the Susten Pass.
I've done the Susten Pass a few times before, and it remains one of my favourite Alpine passes. It's a great feeling threading your way up the narrow sliver of road clinging to the side of the mountain, and the views are amazing.
Before long though, I was heading down the other side and feeling rather sad that my trip was almost over... I stopped for the night at a lovely hotel on the side of Lake Brienz, and from there had a long and boring drive to Calais the next day. I did however stop off in Reims one final time, to round off the trip with a final photo in the pits just a week after I'd taken my first shots there.
This is just the highlights - a more detailed report can be found here on my blog.
After I bought my Jaguar XKR-S in May, I was keen to take it to Europe and give it a proper run. I love Italy, and Tuscany in particular so it didn't take me long to decide on my destination which would be San Quirico d'Orcia. The most time-consuming part though was working out how to get there and back!
I've done a few driving trips through the Alps before, but had never driven the Stelvio Pass so was keen to finally tick that off the list. As well as doing some of my favourite roads, I also wanted to visit a few places that weren't high on the list of great driving roads, but were places that meant something to me. So after many evenings spent planning my route, I came up with this:
London - Reims - Winterthur - Bormio - San Quirico d'Orcia - St. Moritz - Brienz - London
So after work on Tuesday evening I left London and headed for Reims for the night, and after a good night's rest in the Ibis hotel I set off after breakfast and headed straight for the pit lane of the old circuit on the D27 towards Gueux. I stopped there for a bit to take a few photos, and then headed East towards Verdun.
I wanted to avoid motorways as much as possible, so headed along what is known as the Voie de la Liberté (Liberty Road). This is the route followed by George S. Patton’s 3rd Army after D-Day, during the liberation of France and is marked by large marker posts situated every 1km.
I followed the D931 out of Reims, which became the D3, and then the D603. As I'd spent a bit longer than I expected taking photos in the Reims pits, I decided to hop onto the A4 motorway just past Verdun and continued on it until Strasbourg, then a few miles later, I was crossing the border into Germany, and on the B500 heading south to the Black Forest.
I was a bit underwhelmed by the 500, but partly this was due to it being quite busy so it was quite frustrating just trundling along behind trucks and buses, and even with a quick car it wasn't always possible to overtake due to the twisty roads running through the trees.
I had planned a quick detour before I got to my hotel for the night, and headed into Schaffhausen to visit the IWC watch factory. Unfortunately they had just closed by the time I got there, but I managed to get a couple of photos of my watch outside it's birthplace - much to the amusement of a couple of people walking past who must have thought I was strange taking photos of a watch on my car!
Not too long later I was checking in to my hotel in Winterthur - the cheap and cheerful Budget Ibis (and I thought the normal Ibis was budget enough!). I encountered a slight design flaw with my car at this point, as the glossy piano black top of the dash console looks very smart, but is very slippery - and there is a gap in the console just above it which is perfectly positioned to let parking tickets slide into it if you brake! So I had to explain that my car had eaten the parking ticket before I could be let out the following morning.
The plan for today was to head up to the Austrian Alps, via the Silvretta Pass and to stop for lunch at Ischgl - somewhere I've skied at many times so was curious to see what it was like during the summer. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great, and it was raining as I headed towards the Alps. Fortunately though it was still dry as I got near to the Silvretta Pass although was very cloudy as I started to climb up it.
Luckily the cloud cleared as I went over the other side, and it was really nice road to drive - although I'm not sure it is worth paying the €15 fee to go over it.
After a bite to eat in Ischgl, I got back on the road towards Italy and the Stelvio Pass. On the way however I went past a curious sight - a church tower poking out the top of a lake! This is apparently one of the only visible signs of Curon Venosta - a small Northern Italian town that was flooded to make way for an artificial lake.
After some more driving, I eventually got to the Stelvio Pass which I was looking forward to, but with a bit of trepidation as I'd heard it was quite busy and narrow, and that's not what you want with expensive carbon fibre bits on your new car!
The pass was pretty much what I expected, with lots and lots of tight hairpin bends some of which needed full lock, and one or two even needed a quick 3 point turn but my fears of grounding out my front splitter were unfounded. There were quite a few cyclists heading up and down as well as motor cyclists who seemed quite happy to risk losing their heads as they sped round blind bends, and there were even a couple of buses too which meant stopping and waiting on slightly wider parts of the road until they went past.
Eventually though I reached the top and took the obligatory photo looking down!
After stopping for the night in Bormio, the next day saw me heading down to Italy via the Gavia Pass, then down past Lake Garda. The Gavia pass was awesome, although very narrow and exposed in places, and the road surface was pretty poor compared to other passes. It was well worth the drive though, as the views at the top were amazing.
The rest of the drive to Lake Garda was good too, especially the stretch along the SP421, and around Lake Molveno.
The drive down the west cost of Lake Garda was pretty tedious though, with the single lane road and lots of traffic meaning a slow and boring drive down to Brescia. From there, I hopped onto the motorway and headed to Tuscany where I'd be staying for the next couple of days.
In Tuscany I had a few sight-seeing things I wanted to do, so didn't do a great deal of driving - although some of the roads I did find were great fun!
After leaving Tuscany I headed north back up to the Alps, and drove to St Moritz where I'd be staying for the night. Most of the journey was pretty boring, so it was good to get back into the mountains although the Swiss customs officials took a lot of interest in the car, and made me wait for about 15 minutes while they checked all my documentation.
The next morning I set off for my day of passes! First on the list was the Albula Pass which was just a few miles away from St. Mortiz. This was awesome - definitely one to repeat!
After reaching Thusis, I decided to take the "13" road rather than the main road with the same name. This mostly ran next to the A13, however was narrower and a lot more twisty - however it did take you through some very pretty Swiss villages with cobbled streets.
Next up was the San Bernardino Pass which was excellent as well, and that whole stretch was a great drive down to Arbedo-Castione where I took the motorway north for a short stretch until Biasca. There I turned off and headed towards Disentis which was pretty average until Blenio where the road got a lot more enjoyable.
From here I headed towards Andermatt, and up across the Devil's Bridge and on to the Susten Pass.
I've done the Susten Pass a few times before, and it remains one of my favourite Alpine passes. It's a great feeling threading your way up the narrow sliver of road clinging to the side of the mountain, and the views are amazing.
Before long though, I was heading down the other side and feeling rather sad that my trip was almost over... I stopped for the night at a lovely hotel on the side of Lake Brienz, and from there had a long and boring drive to Calais the next day. I did however stop off in Reims one final time, to round off the trip with a final photo in the pits just a week after I'd taken my first shots there.
Edited by ehasler on Wednesday 30th September 16:35
matt3001 said:
Great pictures and write up.
Be interested to know which you took with your RX100?
Thanks. Pretty much all of them were taken with the RX100 actually - the only ones I took with the DSLR were the first ones in the pits at Reims, and a few of the landscape ones in Tuscany.Be interested to know which you took with your RX100?
Great write up ...... I love the car 
The road from Reims east towards Verdun. I'm pretty sure this is the road I took three years back. Lovely road, quiet and if memory serves passes on the top of a hill remains of (I'd assume) massive disused military fortifications which though I stopped, hednt a torch or guts to explore on my own.
The road from Reims east towards Verdun. I'm pretty sure this is the road I took three years back. Lovely road, quiet and if memory serves passes on the top of a hill remains of (I'd assume) massive disused military fortifications which though I stopped, hednt a torch or guts to explore on my own.
Excellent stuff but I'm surprised about your experience on the Stelvio. I followed a bus down it in the summer and neither the bus driver or I needed to do any manouvres to get around the hairpins... Stelvio really isn't much of a driver's road - more of a 'tick it off the list' road I suppose.
FarQue said:
Excellent stuff but I'm surprised about your experience on the Stelvio. I followed a bus down it in the summer and neither the bus driver or I needed to do any manouvres to get around the hairpins... Stelvio really isn't much of a driver's road - more of a 'tick it off the list' road I suppose.
The Jag is quite a long car, and with a carbon fibre splitter poking out at the front I wasn't taking any chances! Agree it isn't much of a driver's road - there are better passes in the area, but like you say it's good to tick it off the list.Gassing Station | Roads | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff