Mike981S

After our arrival in Zurich, we spent time to visit my relatives for the next couple of days and do some day excursions.
First excursion was to drive some backroads up to the Pfannenstiel Hochwacht near Zurich for lunch (a typical Swiss Bratwurst) and enjoy the awesome view of the Alps from Saentis over the Glarus Alps to the Bernese Alps.





The local Foehn wind made for some great detailed views of the Saentis.


From there we took some more backroads via Rapperswil to Einsiedeln where we visited the ski jumps and the monastery and enjoyed a delicious gelato.







We quickly stopped in the no parking zone to take a picture and continued as a police car drove by

In the evening, we met up with my stepbrother and his family. We went for a drive on some of the very twisty but narrow backroads. He was leading us in his BMW M4 cabrio, while I followed, giving his teenage sons turns to ride passenger. At the end, we ended up having another delicious dinner. When we came out, a local decided to park his Huracan STO next to us .


At the Sihlsee

Ready for dinner

The STO parked with enough distance

The next day, the weather turned to rain. We visited my stepsister's family and I took her husband for a drive on some of the local roads, but given the bad weather, we didn't take any pictures. On the trip home on the highway, a young fan (passenger, not driver) in an Audi S4 Avant took some rolling shots and videos of us... The car definitely is not stealthy.

The day after, weather improved again and we visited my brother, who is renovating an old house. After spending time with him over lunch and the early afternoon, we decided to take the scenic route via Schwaegalp (the bottom of the Saentis cable car).






During the final day in Zurich, we decided to spend some time at the lake. We parked next to the Le Corbusier House and enjoyed lunch and a stroll in the park at the lake, including a visit to the Chinese Garden, a present of Kunming to the city in return for the help of Zurich with their sewage and waste water system.



Typical view of Lake Zurich

Tinguely moving sculpture

Chinese Garden in Zurich

Chinese Garden in Zurich

Le Corbusier House

Mike981S

On May 1st, a holiday in Europe, we decided to finally head up into the Alps, specifically St. Moritz, where we stayed at an apartment for the next couple of days.

We started by driving the highway towards Chur, enjoying the views of snow melt waterfalls and the lakes we were passing. This was the first longer drive on a highway with the GT4RS, and it did well. Because the highways in Switzerland are much smoother than your average US highway, the car was comfortable, and the noise level was similar to other GT Porsches (not too loud).


Snow melt waterfalls at Lake Walensee

Once we reached Chur, we took the more scenic and twisty route, heading up to Lenzerheide, then back down to Tiefencastel. Since both the Fluela pass and the Albula pass were still closed, we took the Julierpass to Silvaplana and then headed to St. Moritz. Otherwise, we probably would have driven the detour over Davos, since we were planning on driving the Julier at a later date anyway.


Julier pass at 2284m elevation

Unloading the car in St. Moritz

A cool classic Volvo 544 with Sparco seats in the underground garage

After we arrived in St. Moritz, we got to enjoy the late arrivals of the Mille Miglia's Coppa delle Alpi's St. Moritz stage on our way to go shopping at the Coop.


Porsche arrivals at the Coppa delle Alpi

Lamborghini Espada

Jensen 541R

Unfortunately, the weather was going to get worse (colder and more rain and potentially even snow above 2000m elevation) for the next couple of days, but often the Engadin still gets sunbreaks and less rain or snow than the rest of the alps, so we were hoping that was going to be the case too.



Next morning, it was getting cold (4C) and the weather was unstable, flipping between cloudy and light rain. Thus, we decided to take it easy, avoid potential snow on the passes, and drive along the lakes to Maloja to take some pictures in the cold winter landscape and then head to Zernez to visit the Swiss National Park Museum.




Lake Maloja: Still covered with ice on May 2nd

Lake Maloja: Still covered with ice on May 2nd



Silvaplana Surlej


National Park Museum: Recent history

National Park Museum: Multimedia show of the park life cycle

National Park Museum: Multimedia show of the park life cycle

On the next day the snow was coming down to about 1900m, so we decided to just enjoy St. Moritz with some walks and shopping for souvenirs.


Overnight snow.

Mike981S

Since the intermittent snow seemed to leave just dustings and the weather for the next 2 days was predicted to improve, we decided to get a bit more adventurous.

Checking out both Alpenpässe (alpen-paesse.ch) (available in English and German) and Welche Pässe sind offen? Das Pässe-Portal Schweiz - TCS Schweiz (German, French and Italian), we noticed that the Spluegenpass just opened. The pass snakes from Chiavenna in Italy over 1800m/6000ft up to the pass at the border and then down to the village of Spluegen. The road, especially on the Italian side is often very narrow and technical, with some narrow tunnels and galleries that could be over 100 years old. So a lot of fun but also requires full attention to oncoming traffic.


Our route for the day.

We did start the drive by heading down the Maloja pass to the Bergell valley and Chiavenna in Italy. We were lucky and the road was mostly empty and we could enjoy both the twisty beginning and the long sweepers further down in the valley. Since we were in Switzerland, we kept to the speed limits. In Chiavenna we turned north towards the Spluegenpass. Waze started to complain, since it still thought that the pass was closed, but we knew better and drove on.


Waze thought the pass was closed (sorry for the out of focus picture, but I may have been driving too spirited )

After a spirited drive up the pass, energized by the adrenaline, we decided to stop in the fog and light snow at the top of the pass. It was cold, so we didn't stay long, but drove down the twisties on the Swiss side.





Arriving in Spluegen at noon, we enjoyed another delicious lunch (though the bakery was unfortunately closed).





Once the lunch was over, the weather had started to clear and the sun was starting to shine. As a result, we also noticed how dirty the car got!




No garage queen

No garage queen

No garage queen

No garage queen

No garage queen

We decided to forego the highway and instead follow the local road instead. The benefit is that we get to drive on more fun roads, through the Rofflaschlucht before reaching Zillis. In Zillis, we visited the famous church with its culturally important wooden painted ceiling. The usual parking lot was used for a cow beauty pageant that was fun to watch .










After visiting Zillis, we followed the Via Mala (the bad road) where we stopped to take some pictures. Since we were still having some way to go, we didn't hike down into the valley, but having done it before, I can recommend it.


Via Mala Gorge

Via Mala Gorge

From there, we drove to Thusis and then via Tiefencastel again over the Julierpass back to St. Moritz.


Julierpass

Julierpass

Julierpass

Mike981S

Since the weather finally improved, we planned a larger tour for May 5th: Bernina Pass down to Tirano, then to Bormio and up to Livigno. Then via the tunnel to the Ofenpass road and via Zernez back to St. Moritz.



The first leg was to the Diavolezza cable car, where we took the cable car up to the top at almost 3000m (9800ft) elevation.


Heading towards Bernina (near Morteratsch)

Heading towards Bernina

Diavolezza Cable Car

Diavolezza

Mountain Panorama

Piz Palu

Ski tour up Piz Palu

Picnic on the glacier

The views of the Grison alps are breath-taking, Piz Palu was busy with ski tourers (it was the last day of the ski season and people could still ski down to the parking lot), and even someone who took a Pilatus plane up to the Pers glacier.

We enjoyed the view and had a typical Swiss lunch: Paprika beef goulash with polenta and a Rivella.

Swiss lunch

After the lunch, we took the cable car down, took some pictures and continued the drive over the Bernina pass at 2330m down towards Poschiavo and then crossed over the border to Torino. The road is a lot of fun and besides some short stretches of one lane construction was almost empty (though some bikers took some great pictures of us driving by). I did catch the first of several pebbles for the trip in my brakes. Given I have the PCCBs, I was a bit concerned, but fortunately after trying some breaking/reversing/wiggling, the pebble dislodged, and the brakes still were fine.



Bernina pass (2330m)

The route over the Bernina is not only a great driving road, but it is also a famous rail line with some interesting features like a viaduct taking a 360 degree turn. So of course I tried to capture both together:


Famous RhB Viaduct doing a 360 turn

Once we arrived in Tirano, we got stopped by the ice cream police, so we obliged and enjoyed a gelato while watching people looking at the car.




From Tirano, it is a fairly boring drive (too many straight tunnels) to Bormio, where it got interesting and fun again. For some reason, most passes in that part of Italy are only about 1 1/2 car widths wide, which can lead to some interesting encounters with oncoming traffic and limited overtaking opportunities. We drove over the Foscagno pass (2291m) and then down into Livigno. If you need to gas up, this is the cheapest place to do so, since it is a tax free enclave (since it used to be only accessible from the Swiss side in the winter).


Old tax border station at Passo Foscagno (2291m)

Passo Foscagno (2291m)

The shortest drive back to St. Moritz would be Fuorcla di Livigno back to the Bernina pass, but that route was still closed due to avalanche danger. So we took the route along the Lago di Livigno, a reservoir on Italian soil that is owned by a Swiss power company.


Lago di Livigno

Lago di Livigno

Lago di Livigno

Once past the reservoir, you enter a one-way toll tunnel that brings you out on the Swiss side and the Ofenpass road that we then took to Zernez and then back to our base in St. Moritz.



Since we dirtied the car quite a bit, I decided to give it a rinse in a car wash in Samedan. I avoided using the brushes but just sprayed the car with the water hose that took off the worst of the grime.


before the wash

after the wash

After the wash, we took some pictures at the old church in Celerina before heading home.



The GT4RS ain't no snail

The next day, the weather turned bad again, so we saved our kilometers. We could drive about 150km per day for 40 days to stay below the 6000km limit. Instead, we did some souvenir shopping and had a great last dinner in St. Moritz at the Hauser Hotel: Heisser Stein (Hot stone).


Hot stone (with meat, vegetarian option is available)

AWDman

Mike- amazing photos, what durable memories must have been created on your ED trip.

I’m doing ED on a SRS, may leave car there for 3 months, returning multiple times. That’s the plan but delivery timing may screw it up.

Curious- did you have any contingency plans for punctures? How did you figure on handling that possibility? TY.

Mike981S

Sounds like an interesting idea. Check with Porsche to make sure that the car does not slip beyond the 6 month limit, otherwise the German government may cause some issues (like wanting to collect the VAT).

As to the punctures, that depends on what type of puncture you may get. I did catch a nail in my rear tire on my GT4 back in 2016. I was able to get it plugged professionally by a shop nearby (in Celerina) that assured me that it will be able to drive up to max speed on the highway.

If you get a catastrophic failure or puncture in an area that cannot be plugged, then Porsche provides you with an emergency roadside number to call to get your car onto a flatbed tow truck. You probably would have to then buy a replacement tire. Definitely more of a hassle, and depending on where it happens, it may take a few days until you get the replacement. Fortunately, I didn't have to handle this situation yet.

Mike981S

After our rest day, we packed up early and left for Meran. The goal was to get to Meran while the weather was still a bit mixed, so we would be able to hit the Dolomites and passes afterwards during the 3 days of predicted sunshine.



The route was straight-forward this time: Heading to Zernez, then through parts of the Swiss National Park, over the Ofenpass and then through the picturesque villages of the Val Müstair. We could have chosen to drive down the Unterengadin into Austria and then over the Reschenpass, but that would have added too much time to our route (we wanted to arrive in Merano early enough to visit the spa).

Since it was middle of the week the traffic was low, though we got caught behind a bus and a truck for a bit. A few small construction sites let me exercise the front-axle lift. The Ofenpass is a joy to drive and has some nice higher-speed sections (of course all within the Swiss 80 kph speedlimit ).


Ofenpass (2149m)

Ofenpass (2149m)

Val Müstair

Val Müstair

Once we arrived in Italy, we decided to head towards the Stelviopass which we knew was still closed for the season. However, since Waze indicated that it could be driven up quite a distance, we decided to see how far we could get. Unfortunately, the road was blocked earlier than what we hoped at Trafoi due to avalanche danger.


Entrance to the Stelvio National Park

End of the road in Trafoi

End of the road in Trafoi

End of the road in Trafoi

Along the way, we got to visit the outdoor art museum of Lorenz Kuntner, a local artist and shaman. Definitely worth a stop and chat, even if he is trying to sell you some of his books and marmelade.






After that excursion, we drove to our rest for tonight, the Hotel Sittnerhof in Meran. This is our go-to stay in Meran since we first stayed here during our 2012 981 Boxster S Euro Delivery. The hotel even provides ramps for lowered cars into their car park 👌.




We concluded the day with a visit of the beautiful Terme Merano (the spa) (no pictures allowed) and a nice dinner. If we compare the Spas in Baden-Baden and St. Moritz with the one in Merano, the Merano is our favorite due to the outdoor landscape, closely followed by the Caracalla Spa in Baden.

Mattyboi

Merano is such a great town! The Timmelsjoch alpine strasse opened today if you are still in that area. I'm heading there after lunch so I'll keep my eyes peeled just in case!

Mike981S

Cool. Unfortunately, I am already back in the States. I was there a month ago. I need to get there later in the season some day, to get the opportunity to enjoy an open Timmelsjoch. So far I only made it to the restaurant after the tunnels both times I was there... Enjoy the drive!

Angryinch

Loving the pics!

magnus89

Thanks so much for sharing the write-up! The car looks incredible, not a color for the shy. My trip was so quick - just 10 days with the car - I'm envious that you were able to take more time.

Mike981S

After another delicious breakfast, we had two items planned: Visit of the Messner Mountain Museum Juval. A castle he bought, sometimes lives in and has opened as a museum to the public and driving some great passes on our way to our next stop in St. Ulrich/Ortisei.



We started with visiting the Messner Mountain Museum Juval. You park at the bottom at the castle's farm shop, take a short shuttle ride partway up, and then hike along a lovely path to the castle.







Juval castle was renovated by the last two owners, first a Dutch owner and then Reinhold Messner who created an awesome museum, bringing his deep understanding of the mountains and their inhabitants in an interesting and inspiring setting into his castle. The castle grounds provide serene and beautiful spaces to relax, rest, and meditate. The exhibition ranges from Hindu, Buddhist and other religious and cultural artifacts to Messner's own equipment used during his previous expeditions. The museum's aim is to bring you closer to the magic and mystic experiences of the mountains and put it into relationship to other, different, religious like experiences that tried to capture and communicate it.





Old expedition gear





Some interior impressions including a traditional heating oven (Kachelofen in German) that includes a tile for each of the 14 8000m mountains Messner climbed.







Apparently, Reinhold Messner had a fall at night on the castle ground in 1995 that injured him (that was the "bock" that he "shot" in the picture above).

After spending about 3 hours at the castle, we took the shuttle down again and continued our drive. Next goal was to drive up as far as we could towards the Timmelsjoch pass. We knew it was still closed, but the drive is still worth it. Unlike 8 years earlier, this time the sun was out too! On the way there, we noticed that the local buses were all fans of acid green too!


Speaking of paint to sample: On the way there, we also crossed path with a group of German Porsche and BMW drivers lead by a 944. More about them in a future post.

As 8 years earlier, the road was again blocked off at the Gasthaus Hochfirst. Unfortunately this year, the Gasthaus was not yet open, so we did not get to enjoy their delicious Apfelstrudel.








After taking some pictures, we drove back towards San Leonardo and then drove up to the Edelweisshuette on the Jaufen Pass. Fortunately we were able to overtake some slower cars fairly early and then had the drive up all to ourselves. We only got overtaken by a local motorbike that was doing wheelies for a while right behind us at about 70 to 90 kph!







The drove down the pass towards Sterzing was fun too, though the road condition was a mixed bag. A lot of broken pavement and the road was often only 1.5 car widths wide. Once we reached Sterzing, we hopped onto the A22 to make it to St. Ulrich and our hotel for the next 2 nights before night fall (otherwise SS508 towards Bozen would have been another fun road to drive).
​​​​​​​

Mike981S

The next day we started relatively early to enjoy the passes. For a variety of reasons, this day was going to be one of the highlights of our trip and a very long day of driving awesome roads and making great friends. Here is the preview of the route:



The drive from St. Ulrich heading up the Sella pass in the morning light with light traffic was a great start to the day. The Dolomites provide awesome backdrops to the GT4RS:












On the way up, we met a German Youtuber, who offered to take some drone footage of me driving up to the pass and back down again, which I gladly accepted. The upper part of the road was being refinished, so the surface was full of gravel and there was a speed limit of 30 kph.
After we were done with the recording, we stopped at the top of the pass to enjoy the view and take some pictures. The road had some big heaves and broken pavement where the front-axle lift came in handy.



As we were taking pictures, the group of Porsches and BMWs that we saw the day before stopped at the pass as well and Martin, who happened to be working for Porsche's paint to sample program and was a long-time Instagram friend, introduced his group and we started to hang out around and talked about the cars. Their group consisted of a 944, a 981 GT4, and 2 BMW M3s.








As we were talking about our cars and the trips so far, another Porsche was driving by and pulling over.



The license plate was from Boeblingen (BB), a small town outside Stuttgart, which is often used by Porsche AG for their test cars and customer drive cars. As it turned out, the two drivers were Porsche development engineers from their motorsports division in Weissach and the car was one of approximately 25 911 992 Sport Classic prototypes. Apparently, they were taking it out to test its suspension setup during the weekend .

It was a beautiful car, with the Sport Classic houndstooth interior, the duck spoiler, gold accented script. Looking closer, you noticed the holes where previously the camouflage was attached, and the grill was missing the Sport Classic badge. A pity that the car most likely will be crushed once Porsche doesn't need it any longer.



Sport Classic interior

Sport Classic interior

Holes to attach camouflage

Duck spoiler, gold script and no badge

After a while, we all itched to get driving again. Martin's group let us join them for the day, which was shaping up to be a lot of fun. Heading down the southern side of the Sella Pass towards Canazei, David's GT4 was taking the lead, Martin changed into the GT4 to take some pictures and videos of us following second.










Before we headed up some more passes towards Ponte Nova, we took a short lunch break. For the next leg to Ponte Nova, I got the chance to drive Ferdi's well-sorted BMW M3 (MT, Manthey setup, bucket seats, no rear seats, and only intermittently working ABS). Light with about 280bhp, it handled beautifully, and it is a great reminder of what driving a BMW used to be (and got lost in the new, heavier, bigger, less engaging M3/M4s). While I had fun driving the BMW, my wife enjoyed driving the GT4RS.


Older but still awesome

My wife enjoying the GT4RS
After changing back into the GT4RS, we were heading up the fun, but very narrow road to Passo Manghen (definitely not for the faint of heart). This time, Martin was leading in his 944 while I was making up the rear, keeping a bit of a distance to avoid catching gravel with my paint. The pass had its own microclimate, even giving us colder rain.









After a short photo and bio break at the top of the pass, we continued down SP31 towards Telve. Another fun drive, that this time ended in a traffic backup caused by an earlier collision of a smaller motorbike and a van . We did not see how the collision happened, but it just reiterates that driving on these narrow, twisty mountain roads, one always should drive carefully, anticipating that someone may not be driving as carefully.




After another 30 minutes of driving together, our paths split. We had to head back to St. Ulrich while the group of new friends took another break and headed towards their base in Cortina d'Ampezzo. For the next two hours, the drive was a bit boring, until we started to head back up towards the mountains, heading up Passo Fedeia and the reservoir of the same name. Since it was getting late, we had the roads almost exclusively to ourselves. The evening light made the acid green pop!








Fedeia lead us back down to Canazei from where we drove back over the Sella Pass. First though we had to let the newly hired maintenance crew do some road cleanup...


Chamoix as street maintenance crew

Since there was no traffic to speak off, we had a lot of fun driving up the pass, but also stopping for more pictures. We still watched out for more wildlife (such as deers cross the roads).








Camping and taking in the views and northern lights

We just got back to St. Ulrich to have another delicious dinner in one of the few restaurants that was open past 8pm in the off-season and finished the awesome, exhausting day with a stroll through the pedestrian center of the town at night.


Delicious dinner

Evening stroll in St. Ulrich/Ortisei

magnus89

Wow! That’s an absolute dream day. The scenery is stunning and meeting up with all those car friends, and even that SC prototype, is really special.

Mike981S

After a second night in St. Ulrich/Ortisei, we moved our base to Cortina d'Ampezzo as well. While the previous day was great, today we were expecting to drive some of the best passes in the Dolomites: Sella (again), Pordoi, Falzarego and Passo di Giau.



First we drove up to the Sella pass again. A lot of road construction was still ongoing in preparation of the Giro d'Italia in a couple of weeks, though some spots where there was a construction site the day before was now freshly paved! Since we took pictures the day before, we decided to just continue to drive until past the pass and pick up taking pictures where we stopped the evening before:







While we were taking pictures, there were an old XK Jaguar and a modern 911 driving by and I was able to capture them on a lower serpentine:



The roads had little traffic even though it was a beautiful Saturday, so we were able to drive spiritedly down from Sella and then up to Pordoi and down towards Arabba. Driving the GT4RS comes alive on these roads. The shorter gearing and fast, explosive gear changes together with the aural concert makes it a joy to switch gears and diving towards a hairpin curve, breaking with 1+g from 90kph to 20kph or less and the PDK downshifting gears like a machine gun firing shots is just plain fun.


Passo Pordoi

Passo Pordoi

We wanted to have dinner at the Pizzeria Klematys in Pieve, but a tour bus had just arrived, so we decided to continue the drive towards the Falzarego pass. On the way up, we picnicked on the terrasse of the Hotel Al Sasso di Stria, that was still closed for the season.



After a short drive up (and a long wait at a construction light), we reached Falzarego. Unfortunately, the cable car there was closed for the season, even though one of the ski lifts a bit further down from the pass was still open.



The road down from Falzarego was quite bumpy with broken asphalt, so we kept the speed in check just to make sure that we could avoid the worst potholes. As we came down in elevation, the road conditions improved again. Since we were still way too early to check into our hotel in Cortina and this was the last sunny day based on the forecast for a few days, we decided to take in Passo di Giau as well. I first saw the pass in a Porsche ad in 2012 for the 991.1 GTS or Targa and have fallen in "love" with it ever since. Traffic up the pass was light, and while there were some slower cars, we normally could overtake safely (some even pulled out to let the faster traffic pass). However, the parking lot at the top of the pass was pretty full, so we pulled into the place where the bikes parked for a couple of pictures.


Passo di Giau

Passo di Giau

Passo di Giau

Passo di Giau

Once we were done with admiring the landscape and taking pictures, we headed down the south side of the pass. The snow was still covered in the Sahara desert sand that had swept over the alps a few weeks earlier, leaving a reddish tint on the snow. This was by the way the only place on an Italian pass where there was a speeding camera installed (there are many, often fake, speeding cameras normally in the villages). Driving down the pass was fun, though we did catch another rock in one of the wheels that make us cringe until we got it out again.


Note the twisties followed by a speed camera (one of the few times the AA-CP adapter didn't work)

Once we reached the bottom of the pass in Selva di Cadore, we stopped at the local gelateria and had an ice cream.



Italian Gelateria have the weirdest ice cream signs...


hips don't lie

A boy at a neighboring table turned his chair so he could look at the car, so I invited him to sit in the car, which I think made his (and his dad's) day, as did the 6 Ferraris that drove by about 10 minutes later (unfortunately I was seated in the wrong direction to take any good pictures).



After we finished the ice cream, we turned around and did the Passo di Giau in the other direction.

At the end of another excellent day of driving some of my favorite passes, we checked into our hotel for the next 3 days and explored Cortina d'Ampezzo, a former and future host of the Winter Olympics (in 1956 and in 2026), before finishing the day with another delicious meal (though a group of American guests were talking so loud at a table across the room, that we knew all about their businesses, kids, politics and travel plans).



View from our hotel

The old charm inside the hotel. You felt like in a 1960s James Bond or Pink Panther movie.

Central church in Cortina d'Ampezzo

Some interesting cars we found during the exploration were an Alpine A110 that looks better in flesh than in pictures, an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifolio in a great color 😀, and a fifth generation Nissan Patrol (Y61) with an interesting "kill-list".