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European Delivery and or Porsche Experience CenterThis forum to ask questions and get answers about collecting your Porsche in Europe or the outstanding Porsche Experience Center.
That's about as far as the planning has gotten other than a general idea that the Alps seem like a good idea and I'm considering a stop at the Nomos factory in Glasshutte.
I've seen lots of ideas on this forum, the hard part will be keeping it under one week. My only question is: how important are firm reservations outside the big cities and resorts for someone with a car? I realize that early September will still be pretty busy. I'm traveling with my son, not my SO, so tolerance for risk of uncertainty will be a pretty high this trip. The plan is to make this a scouting trip for a more-organized adventure next summer.
That's about as far as the planning has gotten other than a general idea that the Alps seem like a good idea and I'm considering a stop at the Nomos factory in Glasshutte.
I've seen lots of ideas on this forum, the hard part will be keeping it under one week. My only question is: how important are firm reservations outside the big cities and resorts for someone with a car? I realize that early September will still be pretty busy. I'm traveling with my son, not my SO, so tolerance for risk of uncertainty will be a pretty high this trip. The plan is to make this a scouting trip for a more-organized adventure next summer.
I'd nail down an itinerary myself. You don't have much time to waste kicking about-
My son and I picked up my 718 Boxter in Leipzig on the August 30th and we spent a week on a 2000+ km loop through part of the Alps. It was a wonderful trip. I wrote a longish report and am breaking it up for posting.
The original plan was to pick up the car with my wife but there was no way to make the schedule work. I also knew that my son would get more out of the track experience and a long road trip than she would. My son and I are both pretty easy going so we didn't make a lot of firm plans or stay in fancy places. I only had reservations for four out of eight of the nights we'd be there. We decided to use this trip to check out places that my wife and I could enjoy together on a planned trip next summer.
We flew into Frankfurt and took an ICE train (cheap advanced purchase) to Leipzig. Here are two notes about advanced DBahn tickets: First, make sure you have the credit card that you designate as ID with you. Between the time I'd bought the ticket and the time we left I changed credit cards and almost shredded the old one. If I hadn't brought it along we would have had issues on the train. Second, the trip would have been slightly easier if I'd arranged for the ICE ticket from Frankfurt Airport rather than downtown. I did try to do this but had a little trouble navigating the DBahn site. It wasn't that much harder for the two of us to take the UBahn downtown and change.
The hotel on the market square where Porsche put us up was very nice. We had a long walk around town, a nice dinner outside, a long sleep, a nice breakfast at the hotel, and the Porsche guy picked us up at the door the first thing in the morning. I was most excited about the track time. The paperwork I got when setting up the delivery states that the track car will be a "model identical to yours." That description seemed overly precise but these are Germans... In fact, the track car differed from the manual-transmission Boxster that I had purchased in two important ways: it was an "S," which was fine with me, but it also had a PDK, which took me by surprise and put me off some. When I told the instructor that I'd bought a car with a manual transmission he just said that all of the track cars were automatics and that was that. Later the woman who gave us the factory tour explained that tourists could be awfully hard on manual transmissions. I guess I see their point and could have been on board with the policy but would have appreciated some time to get comfortable with the idea. I'm sure that I was faster and safer with the PDK and maybe it let me appreciate without distraction handling at the limits of traction. Still, I'm surprised that I hadn't run across anything about the policy in their documents or on this forum.
My son and I split the track time and we both had a blast. It wasn't enough time to learn anything but from the first turn I was loving the lack of roll and they way the tires just stuck to the ground no mater how hard we pushed it. I'd never considered any sort of track experience at home but now am definitely thinking about signing up for some instruction and track time when my car's broken in. I'm sure that the differences between my three roadsters ('74 MGB, '07 Miata, and '17 Boxster) will be even more stark when experienced sequentially in the same environment. I'll be doing that over and over again around the local traffic circles here in a month or so.
The instructor also took us on a lap of the off-road track and explained that it used to be a Russian-controlled Army facility. I asked about the fruit trees and he said that the soldiers used to make vodka from the fruit. We'd talked about how much I was interested in Roman ruins and he pointed out the remains of a Roman road. All in all it was a good experience that gave me a quick appreciation for what I was getting into and a taste for more.
The factory tour was interesting. I'm an engineer so any factory is interesting. I tried in the weeks before leaving for this trip to snag a tour of the Stuttgart factory as well since that's where my car is made but that didn't work out. They had a nice collection of older Porsches and our guide told us some good stories about them. Lunch was very good -- and then we were off!
They'd taped the front tag on rather than drilling the bumper. I asked about whether I needed a green sticker and they said that the "Z" at the end of my tourist tag indicated that the car was for export and that I therefore didn't need one.
On-board European navigation wasn't an option for this model but they lent us a Garmen which worked pretty well. I liked that it reminded me of the in-town speed limit (50) that applies as soon as you pass a yellow town sign. Our first stop was Colditz Castle, about an hour away. That was the perfect distance and set of roads for my first miles in the car. We got very lucky when we arrived and caught a tour just starting. It was fascinating to hear about the escapes and the glider that the prisoners built as well as to crawl around a lot of areas not open to folks doing a self tour. Some of us expressed interest in the theatre that was being restored and she extended the tour by 30 minutes to take us up there. I'm not sure that the trip would have been worth it without the tour so it would be worth calling ahead and checking schedules.
Out next stop was Rothenburg. I know it's a cliche for Americans to visit there but I love that sort of thing. That drive was a mix of B-roads and Autobahn and took several hours. It's worth noting that the speed limits that the Garmen reports on the Autobahn were often off by quite a bit but the restricted zones are well-posted so it wasn't a problem. There's a surprising amount speeding up and slowing down involved just due to their policy of reducing speed limits near major exits. I also mixed it up some just on my own just to keep from running at one speed for too long at a time. Traffic was very light most of the time. I never punched it hard but I did nudge the speed up over 100 MPH a few times.
We took advantage of the fact that we had a car to pick smaller, cheaper hotels out of town. We got to the Gasthaus Zur Linde (75 Euro), which was several km from the old town, at 9PM. The kitchen was closed but we had a few beers with a nice couple from Barcelona. We stayed up on the chilly patio talking about travel, food, and EU politics until Midnight.
The next day my son and I enjoyed walking around the old city, especially a lap around the top of the wall. On the surface it's a lot like Toledo. I wish we'd taken a city tour to get some context. We considered doing one that started at 8PM but were fading from residual jet lag after dinner so went to our campsite.
Rick Steves explains the camping alternative well: This is not a state park nature experience: it's a cheap, family-oriented place to spend the night that's rarely booked up. It was clean, quiet, had hot showers, and there was even a beer machine in the recreation room. I'd brought my lightweight backing tarp which we set up just in case and we lay out under the stars under a clear sky with no moon, just a few feet from my new car.
We were watching the weather because we wanted to be sure to hit Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland with clear skies if at all possible. As it turned out we were very lucky with weather that week but there was no way to know ahead of time so our plans were pretty loose. The drive south was long but uneventful. The Autobahn was very good with little traffic.
We stopped at the border and picked up our 40 CHF souvenir vignette. The first part of the Swiss drive was somewhat stressful. There was a lot of traffic and construction with narrow temporary lanes. We took an unscheduled tour of Zurich when I missed a junction. The lesson here is to pay more attention to the highway number and less to the Garmen's lane recommendations. The drive turned amazingly beautiful for the last hour or so, with bright green lakes and green but impossibly sharp mountains and wonderful windy roads going up and down. It was a blast.
nice parking at the Hotel Staubbach in Lauterbrunnen
We stayed at the Hotel Staubbach (137 CHF per night, bathroom down the hall) and enjoyed it quite a bit. We arrived at about 2PM and still had time to take a cable car up to Grutschalp, walk for an hour along a flat, wel-maintained path to Murren, and then take a train and cable car back down before dinner. About halfway through the walk we passed through a herd of cows that was being driven between fields and stopped at a shack to buy three kinds of cheese. Our favorite was a very hard aged local cheese with those yummy crystals of goodness that good hard cheese can have.
For dinner we had pizza and also rosti, a dish that they describe as a kind of hash browns but to me it was more like creamy scalloped potatoes that had been shredded instead of sliced. Either it was pretty good or we were just hungry. We enjoyed a perfect evening sitting outside watching the tourists and then a goat herder go by. It's common knowledge that the old-style dairy economy only exists there in its picturesque form due to heavy subsidies, but I think of it more as a living museum or a tribute to the old ways than a Disney-style fake.
The next morning we hiked about 20 miles with about 3500 feet of gain. We walked a flat path through the valley to Stechelberg (stopping to go behind the iconic Staubbach Falls), up a steep but well-tended trail past Gimmelwald to Chilchbalm, back to Gimmelwald for ice cream, and up to Murren. There we ate excellent cheese fondue (seasoned with hiker hunger) and drank beer on the edge of a cliff watching the parasailers. (Breakfast, lunch, and dinner consisting mostly of cheese got us thinking about a European BM delivery...)
Chilchbalm, a good walk up from Gimmelwald
Fondue in Murren, overlooking the valley
After dinner we took the train and cable car back to the Lauterbrunnen and sat on the porch watching the shepherd parade and and the lit-up Staubbach Falls. The pub across the street looked inviting but by hiker midnight (9PM) we were ready to crash in preparation for the next leg of the trip. I highly recommend this area. The scenery is amazing and there are fantastic trails for any kind of walking. We met a couple at the hotel who had traveled quite a bit to Alpine regions and they said that the closest they'd seen to this kind of place was Glacier National Park. I wished that I'd skipped Rothenburg and made our way to Switzerland as quickly as possible.
With three more nights in Europe I got on Booking.com and made reservations for the two open nights: one in Cuasso Al Monte, Italy, near Lugano, and one just south of Leipzig.
The next morning we headed to Cuasso al Monte Italy. The location was scientifically selected the night before by punching "Lugano" into Bookings.com and picking the cheapest place that looked interesting: the Hotel Alpino (80 Euro). This was the most fun road driving segment of the trip, especially Highway 11 just before Susten Pass. The weather was perfect, the views and roads were great, and there was just enough traffic to give an excuse to pass other cars between sharp turns.
Susten Pass
Eventually we finished the descent and got on a divided highway, the "Ausfahrts" became "Uscitas," and we were in Italian-speaking Switzerland. When we started driving through little towns again the people walking around had magically become better dressed and more beautiful. There was one young thing in a black, bouncy dress who turned her head to check out the back of the car just as I was sneaking a peek at the backs of her ankles -- busted. Eventually we crossed the border into Italy proper. I was a little worried because I hadn't gotten around to picking up an International Driving Permit but they just waved us through. The drivers instantly became frustrated at my insistence on following the speed limits and I was glad that we only had a few km to the hotel.
There was a trail map in the room so we went for a hike while we waited for the restaurant to open. The town was very small and we saw no other tourists, just locals. The buildings and streets were old and clean but this was clearly a place where people really lived rather than a Euro-Disney version of an Italian village. The trails were amazing: like the Roman roads I remember from Sorrento. I have no idea how old they are but they are very well made and looked as though they'd seen a lot of use over a lot of years. Scattered around, completely unmarked, were bunkers that the hotel desk clerk later explained were from WW1. When we got back and cleaned up we found out the the restaurant didn't open until 8, but they seated us early on the patio and we started on a bottle of local red while they fired up the kitchen and we watched the changing light play on the buildings and hillside. This was our best meal of the trip: I had mushroom risotto followed by a whole white fish in a very nice sauce. I'd never been above the olive oil / butter line in Italy, it works.
The next morning I had another long trail run in the morning and then we headed back to Germany. We stopped for a few hours in Lugano to check out the Grand Hotel Villa Castagnola that a German relative had recommended. The elegance of the place would have been lost on the my son and me but it looks like just the thing for a later trip with my wife. It was Sunday and the stores were closed, which was fine with us because it probably kept the crowds down. We then walked fast up a lot steps and through the old part of town, ate some ice cream, and got back in the car for the trip north.
surprise castle view somewhere in Switzerland
The trip up was uneventful but long. It would have been a lot longer if I'd believed the Garmen when it insisted that the the road we planned to take was closed and suggested a route several hours longer. We turned on Google Maps and it correctly reported that the problem had been resolved and we left it on until we got back in Germany.
It was exciting to see that famous castle in Lichtenstein pop up outside the window on the right. I tried to buy a vignette before crossing into Austria but they were out of the 10-day versions so I headed across and found a gas station just before the Autobahn. The station was very crowded, presumably because it seems that gas is much cheaper in Austria. They took my CHF and gave me change in Euros. It was nice to see the speed limit finally get up to 130 and even nicer to cross the border into Germany a few km later and see it go away completely! We hit a couple of nice unrestricted sections and got in the 170s quite a few times. Then it started to rain and we had to slow down to US speeds. The rain never got to the "buckets" stage and the wipers on that car are much better than what I'm used to.
We arrived at the Pension Borna (55 Euro) after 10PM. I'd been emailing the proprietor because I was worried about getting in late but he lives on site and just asked me to call right before we arrived which we did. The room was quiet and clean and breakfast was good. The place seems to be run by a father and son. The father had a strong Russian accent and said that he'd moved there during the DDR days. I borrowed a pair of pliers (Zange -- a concept that was surprisingly difficult to pantomime) from them and loosened my back registration plate bolts. The proprietor suggested that we visit the Monument to the Battle of the Nations on the way up to Leipzig. It is huge 100-year-old monument with a lot of steps. I do love climbing steps, especially before a long train and plane ride. Even more interesting was the graveyard right next to the monument. I also love graveyards. This wasn't the typical plain protestant "Gottesacker." In many of these sections the individual graves looked like little English gardens. This is another place where a some local insight would have been worthwhile, it looked as though there were interesting stories there.
We arrived at the Leipzig plant, emptied the car, and made our way to the train station. There's a good-sized grocery store in the station and we picked up some bread, cheese, and other snacks for the ride back since we'd arrive after 10PM. I also and picked up two bottles of Franken Silvaner dry white wine (4.29 Euro per bottle) because it looked like a wine that someone had given us as a gift some time ago and that I haven't seen often at home. (We just opened one at home last weekend and like it.) Deutch Bahn had cancelled our train and put us on one that was 4 rather than 3 hours long due to a few more stops but we made it back to our airport hotel (used Hilton points) and we flew out the next morning.
Leipzig Dropoff
All in all it was an excellent trip. I'm very happy with the car, the scenery, the hiking, and chance to spend time alone with my son. He's a good traveling companion. The time of year was perfect: it was still warm but most of the locals were finished with vacation. The loose level of planning we did worked out well in optimizing matching location with weather.
I'm also mostly pleased with Porsche's hosting of the delivery with the exception of the few communication issues. I love the car and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. Tomorrow will make three weeks since I dropped it off and it still doesn't show as being at the port yet. My SA said that it's probably held up in customs.
05-28-2016, 05:08 PM
Leipzig Boxster August 30th
