Our trip to the Nurburgring and beyond
Discussion
Hi all
I have added the second parts of our trip to page 2 of this thread!
My wife Rachael and I recently went on a bit of an epic trip in the Porsche, having returned last Sunday. For those that are interested, I wanted to share a little of the highlights, and a couple of the snaps. I have previously posted this on another forum, Passionford, so for those that saw it there – nothing new folks!
There are a lot of photos – so it may take a while to load. Sorry in advance folks!
In brief, the itinerary was as below, (the month being June)
Sat 14th Exeter (Engrland) - Nurburgring (Germany)
Mon 16th Nurburgring - Stuttgart (Germany)
Tue 17th Stuttgart - Lucern (Switzerland)
Wed 18th Lucern - Chamonix Mt Blanc (Switzerland)
Thu 19th Chamonix - St Remo (Italy)
Fri 20th St Remo - Monaco (Sort of France!)
Mon 23rd Monaco - Cannes (France) (and Antibes)
Tue 24th Cannes - Avignon
Wed 25th Avignon - Generac (near Nimes and Montpellier)
Fri 27th Generac - Narbonne
Sat 28th Narbonne - Calais (by train)
Sun 29th Calais to home
I will try to give a brief outline of the best bits of the trip, and the snaps that accompany it. We honestly did soo much that I cant get it all in one story. I will give you the highlights, though in stages - I may have to come back to it tomorrow! I took loads of photos, and this is a selection of those shots taken.
For those not interested, then I recommend the pretty little red x in the top right of your screen!
I find this can often solve many problems.
We covered a total of 2,500 miles in the car, as well as the 800 odd miles that the train did getting us back from the south of France up to Calais. That’s quite a fair trip for a two week holiday! Some of the photos are quite large, so sorry!
Sat 14th June
We left Exeter in Devon (from now on called home) with my cousin and good friend Paul in his new (to him) E46 M3, and met up with my lifelong friend Ant in his SL55 AMG (stupidly fast car!)
Car in Tunnel - the last time it would look shiney for two long weeks - the poor thing had no idea what was waiting for it!
First destination - Nurburgring!
Sun 15th - At the Ring
Well, having finally got here and got out of the s
t hole that is Liege, we find ourselves here at the same time as the World Superbikes! I was aware that we had chosen this weekend, but only long after we had booked it all up. It did explain why accommodation was soo hard to find!
Free advice - if you do choose to go to the Nurburgring on the same weekend as the World Superbikes championship, then you need to know the following:
1. The hotels will be full, and as such you will be forced to spend Sat night in a terrible terrible place such as Liege in Belgium. James's free tourist advice - If you have to stop in Liege - don't!
2. When you get there, the track will be surprisingly quiet! That is because everybody else is watching the superbikes on the new track next door!
3. If you were expecting to get loads of really nice photos of your car from those nice chaps that normally take snaps of the cars on the Touristfarting (deliberate misspelling) - forget it. Somewhat unsurprisingly, they were all taking photos of the superbikes! Go figure!!!
The place was absolutely buzzing! Whilst the area was really really busy, a real surprise was that the track was dead quiet. This was in no small part due to the fact that the track was also wet (or at least partly wet) for most of the day.
Interesting fact number 1 - If you go to the Nurburgring when there is a major event on the new track, they reroute you through the old pit lane on the Nordschlieffe!
This was cool for two reasons - firstly we got to go through the pit lane of the old track, and two, it encouraged all of us to leave the stopwatches in the bag, and concentrate on having a little more fun!
The above gives you an idea of the wetness! We arrived in typical form to a closed track - a familiar position for any regular ring-goer.
That gave good opportunity to explore the car park a little. The highlights on the first day had to be these two bad boys -
Brand spanking GT2 - Nothing says "I have money" like taking your brand spanking new £130,000 to a race track!
This was one of those rather tasty Merc CLK AMG Blacks - at least we think it was. If it wasnt, it was at least the colour black!
The below is a piccie of my extremely long suffering wife! Anyone who knows Rachael knows that she puts up with a great deal with a cheery smile! She was an absolute angel on this trip, and when she wasnt in one of the cars with us, she happily stood guard at the cafe!
Soooo - the track did open, and this gave me a whole new experience - Nurgy with the engine in the wrong place!!!!
I will never forget the line I believe that I read on the bridge to gantry website - "Porsche GT3s are magnetically attracted to the barriers at the Ring". Anyone who has been there regularly will have seen at least one Porsche dragged off, and I really didnt want to be another on the list! So right up to the first corner, I was really well behaved, but that was sadly how long it lasted!
I have always had a real fear of the ring in the wet - mainly because the 2wd cossie that preceeded the porker was supremely bad in the wet! The track was half dry by the time we got out there - and the wet first hits you halfway down the hill (before you get to the other entrance near Adenau). Pretty bad place to suddenly and spectacularly lose traction!
When I first got to the wet stuff, I celebrated the fact with a very poorly timed down change whilst applying brakes. This led to a rather anus-clenching aqua plane of sorts (nice way of saying skiddypoo). Fortunately, my brain operated fast enough for me to sort out before we arrived at the next corner. Thereon, the car was absolutely sublime! The 4x4 combined with the electronic gizmos made light work of it, and I really started to enjoy myself out there.
The above shows me following a black porker identical to mine bar for tyre choice - he went for Michy Cups - stunning in the dry, but useless on both wet and somewhat more surprisingly also mildly damp tracks. This basically meant that in the beginning through Hatzenbach (dry) he was quicker than me, and pulled away. When it got wet, I was back on him big style. As the track dried (near the show-boat corner where the photo was taken) I seemed to weirdly keep my advantage, and was all over him till I eventually overtook him and carried on. Hurrah for me and my intermediate Pirellis!
Paul in his new M3 was having a cracking time, and loving every minute. Anyone who has been there will tell you that the M3 bang-for-buck is one of the most competent cars you could choose. He loved every minute
Ants SL is one of the funniest cars in the world. People simply have no idea how fast it is! This leads to a good deal of porsches totally underestimating it, and suffering often at his hands.
Day 2 - dry weather!
Sore heads from a few beers the day before, but nothing serious. We shared the hotel with some of the guys from the Honda Superbike team - top lads, who needed to nurse a poor result with the use of beer!
Arty shot of the track from the car park!
There was a good deal of serious metal out on the monday, and to be honest for a lot of the time, it was just too damned busy!
Interesting Information 2 - If it is too busy, keep the faith. More than 75% of the attendees tend to leave about two hours before the end of the day - best laps are to be had then - and you can get a few in!
The most impressive driver for me was the guy in the white GT2 - he was absolutely on it. Drove away from anything anywhere near him.
Second prize goes to the guy in the Black CLK AMG, who couldnt drive for st, but in the wet put soooo much faith in the toys - the car was all over the place, but never found a barrier!
This is us all smiling for the camera. I lost the "hold your stomach in competition" - as per usual!
A couple of other shots of guys on and around the track......
The below is possibly my favourite photo of the whole weekend.
Finally - guess the car competition.....
At this point, we said our goodbyes to Ant and Paul, who returned home. We ventured on just the two of us in the Porsche......
Tue 17th June - Stuttgart
Anyone guess why we went to Stuttgart? No - you're wrong, it wasnt for the football or the beautiful architecture. It was in fact to do the Porsche Factory Tour!
No photos are allowed in the factory sadly, so I cant show you much from there - needless to say it was like an Anoracks wet dream! As such, I loved it! Was great to see how they put the cars together, and in particular the engines. Nice to know that there is a separate line dedicated to only 911 GT2, GT3 and Turbo engines! Also, interestingly, even though it is a production line one man will completely assemble one engine, as opposed to just doing one bit. This way it ensures that they are accountable for their work.
Interesting fact 3 - Each engine number can be traced to the chap who built it, but only by Porsche!
Best photo was actually from the Stuttgart Porsche dealership - a 911 Turbo cut away to show how it was put together! How cool eh! 100 grand car cut in half! Only those crazy Germans!
Also - the best sign in the world was found in Stuttgart. Anyone who knows me will understand the importance of this kind of hospital
Interesting fact number 3 - If you go to a dealership in Germany, they dont try to take your money for no reason!
I had convinced myself that one of my rear tyres was a little low on tread on the inside edge. As such, I had booked it into porsche Stuttgart for a pair of rear tyres (better safe than sorry given the roads). When we got there, the guys actually checked the amount of grip on the tyres. When he did, he announced that I was worrying about nothing, and that there was plenty of grip left. As such, his recommendation was that I shouldnt change the tyres! Wow!!!
I can absolutely guarantee that a main dealer in this country would not have even checked the tyres - simply changed them, and taken your money. What a refreshing attitude!
An opportunity for some spare parts!!!! (Mine on the left - donor on the right!!!!)
After this, we dove down to Lucern, in Switzerland.
First view of rather a large hill
For those that dont know Switzerland (and that included me), Lucern is a pretty amazing little town, set by a lake, and also by the start of the Alps. It is picturesque beyond belief. Photo below is part of the town.
The timber walkway was properly old - cant remember how old, but Google will doubtless assist in this for those that must know! I can tell you that the tower used to be used for many things, including water butt, and torture chamber! It also benefits from apparently being the most photographed buildling in all of Switzerland (or so they told me!) Naturally, we took a photo!
The Swiss really really really really hate cars. If you go there, be prepared to travel the speed limit. If you are caught doing 15kph over the limit, that is an instant ban, and they remove your licence there and then. I am glad to say, (notwithstanding camera tickets that we arent aware of) that we avoided this, but a lesson for all!
From lucern, we made our way over the Alps. The photos below really speak louder than words........
Talk about small world - half way up a frigging mountain, and we meet a couple from blighty mad enough to tow a caravan over the alps with an F reg 205! All credit to them!
As you get near the top, the snow surrounded the roads, though the roads stayed wonderfully dry and clear.
Rach showing me how to prepare the perfect snowball - little did I know it had a rock in it! - Oh how that sweet innocent face can fool!
At the top of our road, we were at about 2,200m high, and surrounded by deep snow, and frozen lakes! We stopped to have lunch at the top with a couple doing a similar adventure from the Netherlands in their Corvette, which we had a lot of fun with going up the mountain pass.
The rest of the photos likewise speak louder than words - the roads were just incredible. Best bit? No power for speed cameras! Also - no cars! It was like our own private road.
After a good number of hours later, we finally arrived in a little village called Les Houches, just next to Chamonix Mt Blanc at the foot of Mt Blanc. One of the most beautiful places in the world, as I think the photo below shows. The hotel was straight off a chocolate box, and the views were astounding.
The hotel
The view!
The place was owned by a French family, and the cooking and the company was fantastic. Really warm memories of these guys, and I would certainly go back.
Thu 19th June - To the coast!
How surreal is this? We started just a few days ago in cold Exeter in Devon, and by lunchtime, we will be eating in San Remo - a city on the Med in Northern Italy!
We dove through the Mt Blanc Tunnel, which is quite a feat of engineering, but very very dull. So here is us exiting it!
Our first site of the Mediterranean. As I type this, I cannot tell you how excited we were about this - we have taken a serious long cut to get to the med, and I have never driven to it before. It honestly was such an amazing moment when we saw the med!
Interesting fact number 4 - if you are good, the road from the Mt Blanc Tunnel down south to the med in Italy is almost constantly downhilll. As a result, we managed to achieve a rather silly average mpg...... (this is not faked!!!!)
San remo was a nice little town, but not really truthfully noteworthy. Stayed in a great Golf Resort - got to play golf, but the best bit was the drive up the hill to the resort.......
The car by the Med - a major milestone achieved on the hols!
To save everyones poor computers, I will post the second half of the hols at a later date! Lots of photos!
JJ
I have added the second parts of our trip to page 2 of this thread!
My wife Rachael and I recently went on a bit of an epic trip in the Porsche, having returned last Sunday. For those that are interested, I wanted to share a little of the highlights, and a couple of the snaps. I have previously posted this on another forum, Passionford, so for those that saw it there – nothing new folks!
There are a lot of photos – so it may take a while to load. Sorry in advance folks!
In brief, the itinerary was as below, (the month being June)
Sat 14th Exeter (Engrland) - Nurburgring (Germany)
Mon 16th Nurburgring - Stuttgart (Germany)
Tue 17th Stuttgart - Lucern (Switzerland)
Wed 18th Lucern - Chamonix Mt Blanc (Switzerland)
Thu 19th Chamonix - St Remo (Italy)
Fri 20th St Remo - Monaco (Sort of France!)
Mon 23rd Monaco - Cannes (France) (and Antibes)
Tue 24th Cannes - Avignon
Wed 25th Avignon - Generac (near Nimes and Montpellier)
Fri 27th Generac - Narbonne
Sat 28th Narbonne - Calais (by train)
Sun 29th Calais to home
I will try to give a brief outline of the best bits of the trip, and the snaps that accompany it. We honestly did soo much that I cant get it all in one story. I will give you the highlights, though in stages - I may have to come back to it tomorrow! I took loads of photos, and this is a selection of those shots taken.
For those not interested, then I recommend the pretty little red x in the top right of your screen!
I find this can often solve many problems.We covered a total of 2,500 miles in the car, as well as the 800 odd miles that the train did getting us back from the south of France up to Calais. That’s quite a fair trip for a two week holiday! Some of the photos are quite large, so sorry!
Sat 14th June
We left Exeter in Devon (from now on called home) with my cousin and good friend Paul in his new (to him) E46 M3, and met up with my lifelong friend Ant in his SL55 AMG (stupidly fast car!)
Car in Tunnel - the last time it would look shiney for two long weeks - the poor thing had no idea what was waiting for it!
First destination - Nurburgring!
Sun 15th - At the Ring
Well, having finally got here and got out of the s
t hole that is Liege, we find ourselves here at the same time as the World Superbikes! I was aware that we had chosen this weekend, but only long after we had booked it all up. It did explain why accommodation was soo hard to find!Free advice - if you do choose to go to the Nurburgring on the same weekend as the World Superbikes championship, then you need to know the following:
1. The hotels will be full, and as such you will be forced to spend Sat night in a terrible terrible place such as Liege in Belgium. James's free tourist advice - If you have to stop in Liege - don't!
2. When you get there, the track will be surprisingly quiet! That is because everybody else is watching the superbikes on the new track next door!
3. If you were expecting to get loads of really nice photos of your car from those nice chaps that normally take snaps of the cars on the Touristfarting (deliberate misspelling) - forget it. Somewhat unsurprisingly, they were all taking photos of the superbikes! Go figure!!!
The place was absolutely buzzing! Whilst the area was really really busy, a real surprise was that the track was dead quiet. This was in no small part due to the fact that the track was also wet (or at least partly wet) for most of the day.
Interesting fact number 1 - If you go to the Nurburgring when there is a major event on the new track, they reroute you through the old pit lane on the Nordschlieffe!
This was cool for two reasons - firstly we got to go through the pit lane of the old track, and two, it encouraged all of us to leave the stopwatches in the bag, and concentrate on having a little more fun!
The above gives you an idea of the wetness! We arrived in typical form to a closed track - a familiar position for any regular ring-goer.
That gave good opportunity to explore the car park a little. The highlights on the first day had to be these two bad boys -
Brand spanking GT2 - Nothing says "I have money" like taking your brand spanking new £130,000 to a race track!
This was one of those rather tasty Merc CLK AMG Blacks - at least we think it was. If it wasnt, it was at least the colour black!
The below is a piccie of my extremely long suffering wife! Anyone who knows Rachael knows that she puts up with a great deal with a cheery smile! She was an absolute angel on this trip, and when she wasnt in one of the cars with us, she happily stood guard at the cafe!
Soooo - the track did open, and this gave me a whole new experience - Nurgy with the engine in the wrong place!!!!
I will never forget the line I believe that I read on the bridge to gantry website - "Porsche GT3s are magnetically attracted to the barriers at the Ring". Anyone who has been there regularly will have seen at least one Porsche dragged off, and I really didnt want to be another on the list! So right up to the first corner, I was really well behaved, but that was sadly how long it lasted!
I have always had a real fear of the ring in the wet - mainly because the 2wd cossie that preceeded the porker was supremely bad in the wet! The track was half dry by the time we got out there - and the wet first hits you halfway down the hill (before you get to the other entrance near Adenau). Pretty bad place to suddenly and spectacularly lose traction!
When I first got to the wet stuff, I celebrated the fact with a very poorly timed down change whilst applying brakes. This led to a rather anus-clenching aqua plane of sorts (nice way of saying skiddypoo). Fortunately, my brain operated fast enough for me to sort out before we arrived at the next corner. Thereon, the car was absolutely sublime! The 4x4 combined with the electronic gizmos made light work of it, and I really started to enjoy myself out there.
The above shows me following a black porker identical to mine bar for tyre choice - he went for Michy Cups - stunning in the dry, but useless on both wet and somewhat more surprisingly also mildly damp tracks. This basically meant that in the beginning through Hatzenbach (dry) he was quicker than me, and pulled away. When it got wet, I was back on him big style. As the track dried (near the show-boat corner where the photo was taken) I seemed to weirdly keep my advantage, and was all over him till I eventually overtook him and carried on. Hurrah for me and my intermediate Pirellis!
Paul in his new M3 was having a cracking time, and loving every minute. Anyone who has been there will tell you that the M3 bang-for-buck is one of the most competent cars you could choose. He loved every minute
Ants SL is one of the funniest cars in the world. People simply have no idea how fast it is! This leads to a good deal of porsches totally underestimating it, and suffering often at his hands.
Day 2 - dry weather!
Sore heads from a few beers the day before, but nothing serious. We shared the hotel with some of the guys from the Honda Superbike team - top lads, who needed to nurse a poor result with the use of beer!
Arty shot of the track from the car park!
There was a good deal of serious metal out on the monday, and to be honest for a lot of the time, it was just too damned busy!
Interesting Information 2 - If it is too busy, keep the faith. More than 75% of the attendees tend to leave about two hours before the end of the day - best laps are to be had then - and you can get a few in!
The most impressive driver for me was the guy in the white GT2 - he was absolutely on it. Drove away from anything anywhere near him.
Second prize goes to the guy in the Black CLK AMG, who couldnt drive for s
t, but in the wet put soooo much faith in the toys - the car was all over the place, but never found a barrier!This is us all smiling for the camera. I lost the "hold your stomach in competition" - as per usual!
A couple of other shots of guys on and around the track......
The below is possibly my favourite photo of the whole weekend.
Finally - guess the car competition.....
At this point, we said our goodbyes to Ant and Paul, who returned home. We ventured on just the two of us in the Porsche......
Tue 17th June - Stuttgart
Anyone guess why we went to Stuttgart? No - you're wrong, it wasnt for the football or the beautiful architecture. It was in fact to do the Porsche Factory Tour!
No photos are allowed in the factory sadly, so I cant show you much from there - needless to say it was like an Anoracks wet dream! As such, I loved it! Was great to see how they put the cars together, and in particular the engines. Nice to know that there is a separate line dedicated to only 911 GT2, GT3 and Turbo engines! Also, interestingly, even though it is a production line one man will completely assemble one engine, as opposed to just doing one bit. This way it ensures that they are accountable for their work.
Interesting fact 3 - Each engine number can be traced to the chap who built it, but only by Porsche!
Best photo was actually from the Stuttgart Porsche dealership - a 911 Turbo cut away to show how it was put together! How cool eh! 100 grand car cut in half! Only those crazy Germans!
Also - the best sign in the world was found in Stuttgart. Anyone who knows me will understand the importance of this kind of hospital
Interesting fact number 3 - If you go to a dealership in Germany, they dont try to take your money for no reason!
I had convinced myself that one of my rear tyres was a little low on tread on the inside edge. As such, I had booked it into porsche Stuttgart for a pair of rear tyres (better safe than sorry given the roads). When we got there, the guys actually checked the amount of grip on the tyres. When he did, he announced that I was worrying about nothing, and that there was plenty of grip left. As such, his recommendation was that I shouldnt change the tyres! Wow!!!
I can absolutely guarantee that a main dealer in this country would not have even checked the tyres - simply changed them, and taken your money. What a refreshing attitude!
An opportunity for some spare parts!!!! (Mine on the left - donor on the right!!!!)
After this, we dove down to Lucern, in Switzerland.
First view of rather a large hill
For those that dont know Switzerland (and that included me), Lucern is a pretty amazing little town, set by a lake, and also by the start of the Alps. It is picturesque beyond belief. Photo below is part of the town.
The timber walkway was properly old - cant remember how old, but Google will doubtless assist in this for those that must know! I can tell you that the tower used to be used for many things, including water butt, and torture chamber! It also benefits from apparently being the most photographed buildling in all of Switzerland (or so they told me!) Naturally, we took a photo!
The Swiss really really really really hate cars. If you go there, be prepared to travel the speed limit. If you are caught doing 15kph over the limit, that is an instant ban, and they remove your licence there and then. I am glad to say, (notwithstanding camera tickets that we arent aware of) that we avoided this, but a lesson for all!
From lucern, we made our way over the Alps. The photos below really speak louder than words........
Talk about small world - half way up a frigging mountain, and we meet a couple from blighty mad enough to tow a caravan over the alps with an F reg 205! All credit to them!
As you get near the top, the snow surrounded the roads, though the roads stayed wonderfully dry and clear.
Rach showing me how to prepare the perfect snowball - little did I know it had a rock in it! - Oh how that sweet innocent face can fool!
At the top of our road, we were at about 2,200m high, and surrounded by deep snow, and frozen lakes! We stopped to have lunch at the top with a couple doing a similar adventure from the Netherlands in their Corvette, which we had a lot of fun with going up the mountain pass.
The rest of the photos likewise speak louder than words - the roads were just incredible. Best bit? No power for speed cameras! Also - no cars! It was like our own private road.
After a good number of hours later, we finally arrived in a little village called Les Houches, just next to Chamonix Mt Blanc at the foot of Mt Blanc. One of the most beautiful places in the world, as I think the photo below shows. The hotel was straight off a chocolate box, and the views were astounding.
The hotel
The view!
The place was owned by a French family, and the cooking and the company was fantastic. Really warm memories of these guys, and I would certainly go back.
Thu 19th June - To the coast!
How surreal is this? We started just a few days ago in cold Exeter in Devon, and by lunchtime, we will be eating in San Remo - a city on the Med in Northern Italy!
We dove through the Mt Blanc Tunnel, which is quite a feat of engineering, but very very dull. So here is us exiting it!
Our first site of the Mediterranean. As I type this, I cannot tell you how excited we were about this - we have taken a serious long cut to get to the med, and I have never driven to it before. It honestly was such an amazing moment when we saw the med!
Interesting fact number 4 - if you are good, the road from the Mt Blanc Tunnel down south to the med in Italy is almost constantly downhilll. As a result, we managed to achieve a rather silly average mpg...... (this is not faked!!!!)
San remo was a nice little town, but not really truthfully noteworthy. Stayed in a great Golf Resort - got to play golf, but the best bit was the drive up the hill to the resort.......
The car by the Med - a major milestone achieved on the hols!
To save everyones poor computers, I will post the second half of the hols at a later date! Lots of photos!
JJ
Edited by jjcodex on Sunday 17th August 17:30
Edited by jjcodex on Thursday 21st August 09:39
Edited by jjcodex on Thursday 21st August 10:46
Edited by jjcodex on Friday 6th August 09:46
Cant wait for the 2nd half- some great photos and a great read. Me and my other half are thinking of doing a very similar trip next year- your route is almost the same as what we've planned- although we're thinking of doing 4 or so weeks, and continuing down into spain. Oh and our car will be no-where as decent as yours!
jjcodex said:
LotusACBC said:
Excellent photos! I like the one of the Lotus 11.
What are all those markings on the ring?
Graffitti - there is loads of it! It is a fascinating place. I have to say that I now use parts of the graffitti to mark my braking points etc!What are all those markings on the ring?
JJ
What a very small little world it is. The pic of your missus sitting upstairs at the ring - I am the one standing behind her in the partly orange jumper with the ridiculous expression on my face! I usually look worse than that! lol! My only defence was that was that was on our "way home" from Le Mans.
We were in a little Rent-A-RaceCar BMW 3 series compact and had a great time.
My advise for next time is book in advance and book the AM Tiergarten.
This chap may also have some great pics of you and your friends (www.frozenspeed.com)
Thanks for the write up.
Peter
We were in a little Rent-A-RaceCar BMW 3 series compact and had a great time.
My advise for next time is book in advance and book the AM Tiergarten.
This chap may also have some great pics of you and your friends (www.frozenspeed.com)
Thanks for the write up.
Peter
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