pirahna

So Ken was wanting me to post about as much of the experience as possible so I will do what I can...

Left on my flight on Saturday morning at 6am. First flight was from San Jose to Phoenix, from there to Pittsburgh and then from there to Paris. My flight finally landed at 9am on Sunday.

I rented a car from Avis at the airport, the line for the rental cars was brutal and had about a two hour wait to get my car. I was given the choice of a Peugeot, Renault and some other terrible car. I picked a diesel Renault manual coupe and was gone and on my way to Stuttgart...

eroy2

and then????

My wife finally gave the go ahead to start pricing out what the trip would cost for next year. Would be very interested to know how expensive it was.

Thanks for doing this Pirahna.

gonzilla

+1.
If that's all that happened, it sounds like a pretty boring trip!

pirahna

Sorry guy's, I have been swamped since I got back. I will try and update this some more tonight...

pirahna

The drive from Paris to Stuttgart was about 5-6 hours. Driving through France was slower than expected. The speed limits were mostly 110-130km/h with lots of toll stops. For those that are thinking about taking this trip expect to pay a bit in tolls. I would guess that from Paris to Stuttgart the tolls were about 50 euros.

On the way to Stuttgart I got to experience the Autobahn for the first time. As something I dreamed of since I was a little kid it was a bit anticlimactic in my rental Renault but I was able to get it up to about 190km/h. It was fun to see a few Porsche's, BMW's and Audi's blow past me at speeds that would have equaled jail time at home.

I stayed at a very small hotel about 15 min from the Porsche Factory called Adler Asperg. It was very clean and in a quiet neighborhood. The staff was good and the food was the best I experienced on the trip.

pirahna

This really depends on what you plan to do while there. I would guess that I spent about $2500-3000 on the trip for hotels, car rental, food, gas, tolls, camp site, parking and other misc expenses. I used airline miles for my flight and the ticket to Le Mans was free thanks to my new friend Ken. I would expect to do the same trip for a couple including the same level Le Mans tickets and flights that it could easily top $8k. I don't know how much more a nice hotel in Le Mans would cost but I would guess that they are not going to be cheap and you should probably book them now for next year.

My hotels were generally $150-210 night
Most breakfasts were 10-15 euro/person
Lunches were around 20 euro/person
Dinners were 25-40 euro/person including a glass of wine or beer

pirahna

After two nights at the Adler Asperg and trips to the Porsche and Mercedes museums I changed hotels to the V8 Hotel, a hotel that aspires to be a hotel for motorheads. They had lots of cars to look at and several car guy type shops to look through. The hotel was ok but I wouldn't stay there on a hot day, it was sweltering hot all night and no A/C.

pirahna

Day for I traveled from Stuttgart to Reims. I had a overpriced lunch at a small restaurant with a couple of glasses of wine and then stayed the night at a hotel about 45 min away in the countryside.

The hotel was older but had a nice view of a lake and the restaurant was decent.





The next day I was on my way to Le Mans...

eroy2

Thanks, that helps with my pre planning. I've always wanted to visit the Porsche museum but after seeing everything at Rennsport Reunion on the track being raced with some of the original drivers it's a little hard to get excited about stationary cars. Canepa's in Santa Cruz is definitely worth a visit.

Keep the stories coming.

Eric

IainM

But Reims is Champagne country. They serve it in pitchers at the cafe for lunch.....

JPP

Ha .. I stayed at a little dive in Stuttgart in 2009 that was also very small, clean and tidy and served meals that were some of the best I've ever had in Europe. Their Saurbraten and Potato Pancakes still haunt me ...

Thanks for the travelogue .. it's making we pine for the road

pirahna

Day 5: I left my hotel and headed towards Le Mans. The traffic trough Paris added a bit of time to the trip but at least it kept moving. I would come to long for traffic that moved later in my trip. My hotel was in a small town called Châteaudun, about an hour from Le Mans. This was the best I could do on such late notice. I checked into my hotel around 3pm and then got ready to head to the track.

I asked at the hotel if they had any guidance about getting to the track or where to park but they acted like they had never heard of the track before. So I put it in my navigation and the closest thing that came up was circuit of Le Mans, this sounded close enough so I chose that. At about 4:30pm the navigation said I had arrived. I was near the Le Mans Arena and a large parking lot and I could hear the cars on the track. At the parking lot there was a young guy maybe around twenty watching the gate. I pulled up and asked him if he knew where I needed to go to pick up my tickets. He didn't speak much English but said I could park there and go to the gate and check with them about the tickets...

pirahna

When I got to the gate they didn't speak English. I showed them the receipt for the ticket and tried to explain to them that I was looking for the place to pick up my ticket. They just shook their head and walked away. So I was back in the car trying to find the office to get my ticket. Traffic was pretty bad around near the track.

I kept going from parking lot to parking lot looking for someone that could tell me where to get tickets. One person would tell me to go left 50 meters, the next would tell me to go right 200 meters. I eventually decided that they either had no clue where I was supposed to go or just liked screwing with me. After an hour or so of this I finally saw a sign that said something that sounded like general admission but in French. Thankfully it turned out to be the ticketing office and I had my admission and camping ticket in hand.

I drove back around to the track to the parking lot where I first parked and finally got to the track around 6:30pm. I got a quick bite to eat, found my seat and did a little walking around and by that time it was about 9pm so I headed back to the hotel...

pirahna

On the day before the race things went pretty smooth. There was no traffic around the track and parking was easy.

pirahna

Race day

I wanted to be at the track before 10AM so I checked out of my hotel at 7:30 and was headed to the track. It was smooth sailing until I got about 2km away, then traffic just stopped. It took well over 2 hours to go the last 2 km. Then another 2 hours to get to my campsite.

I camped at the Beausejour campsite. It was very far from the track and if you took the shuttle it could take a long time to get back to the track. I probably wouldn't pick this campsite in the future if there were other choices available but the people camped around me were very nice. The guys next to me were German and didn't speak English but they insisted I have dinner with them. They had some homemade beer that was excellent. By the time I got parked and back to the track the race had already started...