The Alpine Run - 1900 Miles, 5 Days, 30 cars.

[Neil McRae]

Thought I'd write up a road trip that I took part last weekend. It was organised by Dino from http://www.nurburgringuk.com and I have to say it was organised superbly with no detail spared.

We met at the services near the Eurotunnel Thursday morning:

Dino does the briefing, hands out sat navs for those who need them and installs the routes in the BMW Connected drive for those who have it (this was awesome). Also handed out walkie talkies.



After the fun train journey we head towards Germany through France, Belgium and Holland:



I had a bit of a nightmare at this point. on the M5 I get an iDrive message saying the TPMS system has failed. Car felt ok so I ignore it and keep going.

made our first gas stop:







After we get back on the road I get really bad vibration in the steering wheel. at >50MPH the car is undrivable - with the earlier error message I assume a flat tyre. Pull over and check the pressures but everything is ok. Drive some more but problems is still there. Stop again. still nothing obvious. So keep going, its slightly better but I have a brainwave of seeing where the nearest BMW dealer is. luckily its 10 miles in our direction, so i radio in to the rest of the guys and pull off towards the BMW dealer:



These guys had the car for ten minutes and figured out that one of the sensors had snapped off inside the tyre. 40 minutes later and I'm back on the motorway heading to Michael Schumachers go kart track! Great service from this dealer though - in the UK it would be two weeks to get booked in!

arrive at the karting centre and wow- what a place, both indoor and outdoor track. We have two sessions and in each session a 6 minute qualy and a 15 minute final. it was superb.

[Neil McRae]

Karting was great fun and I really recommend the track. There was prizes for top 3 in both heats. Sadly I'm a bit of a fat bd so my job for the day was not to come last and I am pleased to admit that I didn't!



Next it was a long drive down to our hotel in Baden Baden:

[Neil McRae]

We arrived at Leonardo Hotel which had plenty of parking. Rooms were lovely and well air-conditioned (it was a warm weekend!)

and the bar had great beer! Food was excellent too - steak yum!

[Neil McRae]

We then head into the black forest and get our first taste of whats to come. Awesome roads wide, well made and no traffic!

I had gopro camera's back and front this is the video of the first part of the black forrest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7dmbFmoigQ

we stopped off to take some photos of the scenery:

[Neil McRae]

We drove on through more of the forest on our way to Italy and head through the Flüela and Ofenpasses - wow- what amazing roads and scenery!

[Neil McRae]

we managed to stop for pictures on the way

[Neil McRae]

The roads where awesome all the way to Italy...

[Neil McRae]

[Neil McRae]

We arrived at our hotel - again superb underground parking - secure and big spaces



the view from my room was outstanding:



next it was up to stelvio - wow! this was unbelievable!

[Neil McRae]

it was a superb drive to the top. The M5 made mincemeat out of the roads.

[Neil McRae]

From there it just got better and better, you can see the rest of the story in pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilm3/sets/721576344...

a superb road trip, well organised and great value.

Cheers,
Neil.

[Crimefighter]

Great write up and pics Neil.

Any tips for someone planning on taking a trip through a similar route?

How did your walk talkies go? What were the places you stayed at?

Thanks

Matt

[Neil McRae]

make sure you have swiss francs as well as euros and dont drive more than 125KPH! in switzerland!

[MNut]

Fantastic pictures Neil, looks like a great trip, coincidentally someone on the Facebook sent me a link to this earlier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZKh2tO8uPw&fea...

Looks proper that does!!

[Neil McRae]

thanks for posting that up, yes it was mega - thats my M5 in the video - it looks awesome.

Worth booking with the Nburg guys - they ran a superb trip.