A few pics from my road trip!

[englebert]

Awesome pics... i wonder how much weight the carbon bonnet/bootlid saves on those CSLs?

Can you please provide more details on the Stelvio Pass? Would love to know stuff like how many days you need to give, route costs etc.

[glendog74]

Originally Posted by englebert

Awesome pics... i wonder how much weight the carbon bonnet/bootlid saves on those CSLs?

Can you please provide more details on the Stelvio Pass? Would love to know stuff like how many days you need to give, route costs etc.

englebert,

My itinery was as follows:

Day 1 - Ferry from Dover to Calais then drove to Luxembourg (3hrs ish)for overnight stay at the Hilton (cheap deal!)
Day2 - Looked around Luxembourg City until afternoon then drove on to Bavaria (5hrs) in Germany for overnight stay at friends place in Kempten.
Day 3 - Drove into Austria/Switzerland then into Liechtenstein for lunch in Vaduz. Vaduz was lovely to walk around for a few hours before driving on to Stelvio. We spent a few hours driving the road/taking photos and admiring the view before stopping at the small village of Stelvio on the Italian side towards the bottom of the Pass. We stayed at a lovely hotel called Hotel Stilfserhof which had good parking in a quiet location.
Day 4 - Drove the reverse Stelvio Pass in the morning before routing via Bormio and Livignio for a different road before entering Switzerland again. We had planned to go on to Lake Garda but didn't do so in the end.
Day 5 - Drove back to Kempten in Bavaria where we stayed for an evening at their annual beerfest!
Day 6 - Drove up to Nurburgring (4.5 hrs) and stopped at the Hotel an der Nordshleife (75 Euros per night b&b with garage!). Did my first tentative 5 laps on the track on the Tourist Fahrten in between closures for crashes. Relatively busy (Sunday).
Day 7 - A full day at the 'Ring' where i did another 11 laps in nice quiet conditions (Monday).
Day 8 - A quick stop at the Ring for more photos and a visit to the shop before driving to Brussels (2.5hrs) for overnight stay at the Hilton (not cheap but did have secure underground parking). Had a nice walk round city in evening.
Day 9 - Looked around Brussels until afternoon before driving to Calais (2.5hr) for return ferry.

Overall the trip was great with very few days spent driving more than 6 hours/350 miles. I did approx 2500 miles on the continent so that equates to around 8/9 tanks of fuel. Ideally we would have planned for 12 days or so to make the shedule a little more relaxed! The car was a superb long distance tourer and very comfortable indeed with good boot space.

Fuel costs were similar to the UK in France and Belgium. Slightly more in Germany but slightly cheaper in Austria and Liechtenstein. In France we payed a few tolls outbound and in Austria and Switzerland you have to buy a 'Vignetta' road tax to drive there or risk getting a on-the-spot fine from police (who do check!).

MPG was good on transits at around 31mpg at a steady 85mph or more in Germany when you can put your foot down! I was most amused when a VW Vito TD4 van was hassling me to get past at 135mph!

Road quality/traffic in France ok, Belgium/Italy poor, Germany good, Switzerland awesome!

The Ring was great. I bought 2x 8 lap tickets for 135 Euros each. The car handled great but the standard brakes+Pagid pads got quite hot and a bit juddery after 3 straight laps. I stuck to 2 laps each time after that for cooling off. Mpg average went down to 12mpg on track!

Ferry was £99 for car+2 persons with P&O. Will pay £10 more next time to go with Sea France as their ferries looked a bit nicer and the food must be better than P&O...!

Any other questions just ask!

Rob.

[donkcsl]

Great pics on the awesome Stelvio, will have to do it next easter on my ring trip, can't wait to get out to the ring at the end off the month after looking at the photos

[englebert]

Thanks for the write up Rob!

[derek]

superb pictures,

[Andyk]

Thanks for the report Rob...was going to ask how your car faired on standard discs but you answered that.

[Optimus_CSL]

Fantastic pics and great write up, it looks like you had a hoot and as a result have made all the rest of us very jealous!