European Tour pics and video
Discussion
I've been wanting to do a European Road trip for some time but all of the organised trips I had seen clashed with key events for my business so the chance hadn't come up. This year I decided to organise my own trip. This was it. We went at the end of August 2013.
Titled A.R.S.E. (Alpine Roads Summer Expedition) which kind of summed it up nicely. ;-)
We used Walkie Talkies to keep in touch in the cars which worked very well.
Route:
Sunday – Leeds to Hull, catch the 8:30 overnight ferry to Rotterdam
Monday – Rotterdam to Stuttgart, meal and a few beers
Tuesday – Porsche Museum and then Stuttgart to Innsbruck, meal and beers
Wednesday – Innsbruck to Malcesine on Lake Garda via the Brenner Pass, Jaufenpass, SP98 out of Merano & Mendola Pass, meal, beers and 3am swim in the lake
Thursday – Malcesine to St Moritz via Lake Como’s West Coast, route 3 up to St Moritz including the Maloja Pass and others.
Friday – Top Gear roads including route 3 to Davos taking in the Julier Pass, Lanzerheide, Fluela Pass, Umbrail Pass & Stelvio. Overnight in Davos.
Saturday – Davos to Stuttgart, Mercedes Museum, then onto the Nordschleife.
Sunday – Nordschleife before heading to the ferry home
Cars:
8 of us completed the whole trip in the cars listed below and 4 friends flew out and joined us from Wednesday to Friday in a hire car.
Porsche 981S (me)
E93 M3
Alfa Romeo GTV
Audi S4 Cab
Smart Brabus Roadster
Highlights include:
Driving the Fluela Pass, at night, roof down, woolly hats on, after an epic Friday, with a passenger (who is a big rally fan) reading out pace notes based on his TomTom. It just flowed, superb.
Cruising Swiss Valleys, roof down, sun shining, friends, one of which an old friend, following on and the Starsky and Hutch theme coming on the playlist. I nearly filled up I was enjoying myself so much.
Grin on the aforementioned oldfriend's face after the Fluela at night in his M3 with the roof down.
Crashing a Pirelli Promo party at St Moritz without realising it until we noticed all the women were taller than us and being very friendly.
Both the Porsche and Mercedes museums, both excellent.
My Porsche, absolutely superb car, love it. Great brakes!
PSE.
Descending the Brenner Pass. Not as tight as some of the other passes so a bit quicker.
European driving standards.
Hotels:
The hotels were all booked via Booking.Com and then reconfirmed via email a week before we set off.
We stayed at:
Waldhotel Stuttgart – excellent hotel, good sized rooms (we shared twins), good staff. Plenty of parking.
Best Western Plus Leipziger Hof Innsbruck – Nice hotel, good restaurant, staff were a bit cold but that’s that Austrians for you. Good parking on the road side.
Hotel San Marco Melcasine – smaller hotel, they were unprepared for us despite the confirmation email but they did sort things out. Superb position right on the edge of the lake and in the town centre. Nice people. Parking tricky.
The Piz, St Moritz – Spot on, good position, very professional, clean hotel. Parking nearby.
National Swiss Quality Hotel Davos – Spot on again, plenty of parking, staff a bit cold again (the Swiss?) but clean and roomy.
Landgasthaus Pfahl Wershofen near the ‘Ring – Superb. Small hotel but easily the friendliest. Owner is an absolute star. Superb food and after Switzerland, cheap as chips. Plenty of parking.
Photos and videos:
I have about 100 hours of driving footage from the various cars and a large amount of photos as everyone had cameras. This is a small selection
A 10 minute video of some of the roads filmed from my Porsche 981S using GoPro Hero 2 and 3 cameras. Clips from the Brenner Pass, Lake Como to St Moritz and Stelvio.
http://vimeo.com/75258691
The trip
New rear tyres the Porsche needed when we got back!
Porsche Museum
Mercedes Museum
Titled A.R.S.E. (Alpine Roads Summer Expedition) which kind of summed it up nicely. ;-)
We used Walkie Talkies to keep in touch in the cars which worked very well.
Route:
Sunday – Leeds to Hull, catch the 8:30 overnight ferry to Rotterdam
Monday – Rotterdam to Stuttgart, meal and a few beers
Tuesday – Porsche Museum and then Stuttgart to Innsbruck, meal and beers
Wednesday – Innsbruck to Malcesine on Lake Garda via the Brenner Pass, Jaufenpass, SP98 out of Merano & Mendola Pass, meal, beers and 3am swim in the lake
Thursday – Malcesine to St Moritz via Lake Como’s West Coast, route 3 up to St Moritz including the Maloja Pass and others.
Friday – Top Gear roads including route 3 to Davos taking in the Julier Pass, Lanzerheide, Fluela Pass, Umbrail Pass & Stelvio. Overnight in Davos.
Saturday – Davos to Stuttgart, Mercedes Museum, then onto the Nordschleife.
Sunday – Nordschleife before heading to the ferry home
Cars:
8 of us completed the whole trip in the cars listed below and 4 friends flew out and joined us from Wednesday to Friday in a hire car.
Porsche 981S (me)
E93 M3
Alfa Romeo GTV
Audi S4 Cab
Smart Brabus Roadster
Highlights include:
Driving the Fluela Pass, at night, roof down, woolly hats on, after an epic Friday, with a passenger (who is a big rally fan) reading out pace notes based on his TomTom. It just flowed, superb.
Cruising Swiss Valleys, roof down, sun shining, friends, one of which an old friend, following on and the Starsky and Hutch theme coming on the playlist. I nearly filled up I was enjoying myself so much.
Grin on the aforementioned oldfriend's face after the Fluela at night in his M3 with the roof down.
Crashing a Pirelli Promo party at St Moritz without realising it until we noticed all the women were taller than us and being very friendly.
Both the Porsche and Mercedes museums, both excellent.
My Porsche, absolutely superb car, love it. Great brakes!
PSE.
Descending the Brenner Pass. Not as tight as some of the other passes so a bit quicker.
European driving standards.
Hotels:
The hotels were all booked via Booking.Com and then reconfirmed via email a week before we set off.
We stayed at:
Waldhotel Stuttgart – excellent hotel, good sized rooms (we shared twins), good staff. Plenty of parking.
Best Western Plus Leipziger Hof Innsbruck – Nice hotel, good restaurant, staff were a bit cold but that’s that Austrians for you. Good parking on the road side.
Hotel San Marco Melcasine – smaller hotel, they were unprepared for us despite the confirmation email but they did sort things out. Superb position right on the edge of the lake and in the town centre. Nice people. Parking tricky.
The Piz, St Moritz – Spot on, good position, very professional, clean hotel. Parking nearby.
National Swiss Quality Hotel Davos – Spot on again, plenty of parking, staff a bit cold again (the Swiss?) but clean and roomy.
Landgasthaus Pfahl Wershofen near the ‘Ring – Superb. Small hotel but easily the friendliest. Owner is an absolute star. Superb food and after Switzerland, cheap as chips. Plenty of parking.
Photos and videos:
I have about 100 hours of driving footage from the various cars and a large amount of photos as everyone had cameras. This is a small selection
A 10 minute video of some of the roads filmed from my Porsche 981S using GoPro Hero 2 and 3 cameras. Clips from the Brenner Pass, Lake Como to St Moritz and Stelvio.
http://vimeo.com/75258691
The trip
New rear tyres the Porsche needed when we got back!
Porsche Museum
Mercedes Museum
Edited by _Leg_ on Tuesday 24th September 00:46
Fantastic write-up, pictures, video and info.
Roughly what sort of cost did this trip skin you for.. excluding the replacement rear tyres!!
I'm very keen on doing an A.R.S.E next year in my M3. Just trying to get as much info; mileages, routes, cost comparisons together as I can so I can decide on what is/isn't possible to do in 7-10 days that I'm planning to go away for.
Cheers,
Grant
Roughly what sort of cost did this trip skin you for.. excluding the replacement rear tyres!!
I'm very keen on doing an A.R.S.E next year in my M3. Just trying to get as much info; mileages, routes, cost comparisons together as I can so I can decide on what is/isn't possible to do in 7-10 days that I'm planning to go away for.
Cheers,
Grant
For 5 cars, 2x4 berth ferries from Hull to Rotterdam (return), 8 people and hotels on 6 nights with 2 people sharing a twin at each hotel it cost £460 per person.
I bought some decent quality 2 way radios (£200 for 6) which everyone used and I collected back at the end.
I probably got through around £650 of petrol, the e93 m3 a little more and the s4 was about £800. The smart a good bit less as you can imagine.
Next time is F.A.R.T (French Alps Riviera Tour).
I decided not to go to Norway as it would have been called Cars Up Norway Tour which I thought was a bit strong. ;-)
I bought some decent quality 2 way radios (£200 for 6) which everyone used and I collected back at the end.
I probably got through around £650 of petrol, the e93 m3 a little more and the s4 was about £800. The smart a good bit less as you can imagine.
Next time is F.A.R.T (French Alps Riviera Tour).
I decided not to go to Norway as it would have been called Cars Up Norway Tour which I thought was a bit strong. ;-)
Edited by _Leg_ on Tuesday 24th September 19:56
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