asuresh8

Trip Planning

I put the reservation deposit for the car in May 2023, so I had a whole year to plan the trip. My goal for this trip was to drive on the roads in the Top Gear episode where they try to find the best driving roads in the world. They had concluded that Davos to Stelvio was the best roads, so I wanted to hit that stretch. I learned a lot from other people who had planned trips such as reading Curves magazine and seeing other European delivery posts. Most of the roads that I wanted to go are closed in the winter, so I used OsmAnd Maps to plan the route. This is what I ended up with:




Day 0

I landed in Frankfurt Sunday morning. It was a mad house in the airport when I landed. I had to wait almost 2 hours in the immigration line. After clearing immigration, I walked 1 km to the train station. The train took 1 hour to reach Stuttgart.

Porsche books a room in the Steinberger graf Zeppelin. I left my luggage there and went to Porsche museum. I took a combination of train and bus and got there in 30 minutes. I was shocked how much the area had changed since I had last been 13 years ago. The factory has grown tremendously! The museum was fairly similar to the last time I had been. I chuckled at how they now have a section at the start of the museum dedicated to how Porsche’s first car was electric. My favorite car that I saw was a riviera blue 993 carrera rs. Also the 1 millionth 911 was spectacular.




After leaving the museum, I headed straight for the Mercedes museum. The train stop was down for construction headed that way so I ended up walking almost a mile past the soccer stadium. While I walked, along the road several 911’s and other vintage cars mustang, 356, jaguars passed me. Porsche and Mercedes have brought a lot of wealth to the city!

The Mercedes museum is one my favorite museums in the world. While the Porsche museum is about the history of the brand, the Mercedes museum has more about the history of cars in general. After spending a few hours in the museum, I headed back to the hotel to get a good night sleep before the big day.

Day 1

The next morning I woke up early and caught a taxi to the Porsche delivery center. I was so eager to get there that I was 45 minutes early. They offered coffee and pastries for breakfast while I waited. I walked around the showroom a few times. They had a few sonderwunnsch cars as well as a 918! I took a picture of this car because I thought my wife would like the interior. They also had a merchandise shop where I snagged a hat. They also had keychains and other items for purchase.




A nice fellow named Julian came to get me and take me to the new car. I was so happy to see the car in person! Like many of you, I agonized over the options for months. The car turned out exactly how I hoped. Porsche also threw in a few goodies for the trip - a coffee mug, a keychain, and an umbrella. I pulled out of the center and parked in the museum where the factory tour started.

Funny enough, Porsche only does 2 American deliveries a day, and Fred, the other customer, and his family are also from Austin! I was alone for this day on the trip so was happy to make some new friends. We toured the interior factory, which was amazing to see how Porsche customizes everything but still is able to output so many cars. We then walked through the Taycan factory. The production process for the Taycan is incredible. I was in between Tesla model s and Taycan when I bought my daily driver in 2021, but after seeing the production process and with the updates to Taycan, I will probably go Taycan next go around. We had lunch at the restaurant overlooking the museum, and then I was off to Geneva. Fred grabbed this picture of me before leaving.




The drive to Geneva was mostly on the unrestricted autobahn. I varied speed and revs throughout the drive to make sure the engine was broken in correctly. The highest I hit was 120mph because there was a lot of traffic. I reached my uncle’s place in Geneva around 7pm. My brother had gone to the Monaco GP the day before and had made his way there. He rented a Ferrari 812 GTS for the trip and that was delivered later that night. My aunt made a huge dinner and after catching up for a few hours we went to bed.

Day 2

After a humongous breakfast, my aunt and uncle sent us on our way. Our first stop was Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. This is where the trip essentially turned into a top gear episode. My brother attempted to use the Ferrari’s navigation system, which took him in circles. After following me for a while, we stopped at a gas station where I fixed his Apple CarPlay setup and set up the walkie-talkies. Then we were on our way. We were expecting just highway driving until Chamonix but the road turned to be amazing with a curved bridge cutting through the mountains. We parked in a garage in the town center and had a quick lunch. Next stop was grimsel pass. As we got closer, we saw that the road was closed for cars. We stopped and took some pictures and then thought we would drive around. We followed Google maps and it took us to a train. We drove our cars onto the train, and the train went through the mountain and dropped us off on the other side. We got off the train and drove through oberalp pass and got to our hotel for the night. We stayed a lovely little hotel called Hotel Alpsu where enjoyed a traditional Swiss German meal.







We were disappointed to have missed Furka pass, Grimsel pass, and Susten pass but still felt this was the greatest driving day we ever had. The roads to grimsel pass and oberalp pass were amazing. My brother struggled to keep up with me and said the 812 gts handled like a boat, but he had a lot of fun every tunnel when he downshifted and revved out to 9000 rpm.

Day 3

We headed south until we hit the 2 highway. The drive to the highway was fantastic as we through the mountains with lots of tight turns. Once we hit the 2 we took the highway to San Bernardino pass. We followed the highway until the tunnel. The highway was very crowded. I would recommended taking the side road instead. We topped off gas - the 812 gts used a lot of gas - and then went through the mountain pass. We essentially had the road to ourselves and had a blast racing through the pass.




After the pass, we headed to Davos for lunch. It was the offseason in Davos and pretty much everything was closed. We found a restaurant that was open and stopped for a quick bite. There was a Top gear episode, where they concluded that Davos to Stelvio pass was the best road in the world. We took fluela pass which was amazing. We stopped for a coffee in Zernes and then continued on. We next drove through Park Naziunal Svizzer. These roads were also spectacular. At the top of the road we stopped to take some pictures. A group of kids came up to us to look at the cars. They wanted both of us to rev our engines. This was probably the most embarrassing moment in Porsche’s history. The Ferrari v12 revving to 9000 rpm vs the 3500 rev limit on the 911 was no comparison. The kids excitedly shouted Ferrari while walking away.




When we hit the Italian border tragedy struck the 812 gts. All the lights came on and my brother radioed for us to stop. We pulled into a parking lot, where the 812 died. This was the final resting spot of that car for the trip:



We called the rental company who sent out a mechanic. The serpentine belt was destroyed and they didn’t have the replacement belt in stock. We asked the rental company for a replacement car, and they said they would deliver one to our hotel later that night. My brother hopped into the car and we headed for Stelvio pass. We knew the pass was closed for repairs but google maps had marked part of it open so we thought we would try our luck. When we got to the start of the pass, we found that it was only open to bicycles. We went to our hotel in Mals Venosta. The rental company dropped off a 296 gtb at almost midnight.




Despite the death of the 812 gts and Stelvio pass being closed, we felt that this day was even better than the day before. We weren’t too upset that Stelvio was closed as we had already enjoyed several switchbacks throughout the day.

Day 4

The first stop on the day was kaunertaler gletcherstraße. This road was the highlight of the entire trip. There were no other cars on the road so my brother and I raced up the mountain. Initially my brother couldn’t keep up with me in the 812 gts, but with the 296 gtb, I could barely up with him! When we got to the top we enjoyed some coffee and apple streusel. As we were leaving, a parade of 5 Deloreans came up the road! On the way back down, I couldn’t keep up with my brother in the 296 gtb. He had figured out how to drive the car and was in love with the car. Initially he had complained that the 812 gts sounded much better, but the 296 gtb was a lot more nimble.
The next stop on the trip was Gerlos pass. We took the highway there and then got off the highway after Innsbruck. There was a little traffic on Gerlos pass and we couldn’t keep up with one group of bikes, but we mostly had the road at our own pace which was a lot of fun. After Gerlos pass we followed the road to get to Grosslockner high alpine road.


Grosslockner high alpine road was the best road we drove on. Driving on this road feels like driving into the sky. It’s a feeling that I’ve never had on any other road. There were also passing lanes on this road so that we could drive at our own pace, which was nice. At one point, I got out my car to ride in the Ferrari. The 296 is stupid fast. It feels like an f1 car. I was happy to get back into my 911. I have been thinking about adding more power to the carrera t, but after that ride I felt that more power wasn’t going to add any more fun to the 911.



From Grosslockner we drove through Lienz down to Lago De Braies. We took some pictures at the lake and then called it a night.


Day 5

We started early and took the highway to Modena. From Modena we took the side roads to Maranello. Parking was a nightmare in Maranello. While I was searching for parking, a few people stopped me to take pictures with the car, which is funny because literally everywhere else people wanted pictures with the Ferrari but not the Porsche.

We ate lunch at Cavalino which was fantastic. I spent the entire lunch trying to figure out what v12 engine they had in the restaurant. Next we went on the Ferrari factory tour. I thought the Ferrari tour showed a lot more details than the Porsche tour. Ferrari is nowhere near as optimized as Porsche, but they put a lot more effort on the engine than Porsche. I think Porsche only builds gt engines to as tight tolerance. They also test drive all their cars. It’s not really feasible at the scale of Porsche. We got to see a dodici cilindri and an all carbon sp3 Daytona which was really cool. We also got to see the Motorsport buildings, where we saw the Monaco trophies. Last we stopped at a building on the racetrack where they had numerous old f1 cars and fxx cars. After the factory tour we went to the museum. It was cool to see the museum after watching the Ferrari movie, as I had much more appreciation for Enzo Ferrari’a passion for racing. We had dinner at Montana, which was the best meal of the trip. We had the rental company pick up the 296 gtb in Modena, and then headed to bologna for the night.


Day 6
We headed into the bologna city center and did a group walking tour. I love doing these kind of tours in this region of Italy because you learn the history and also eat amazing food. We had prosciutto, mortadella, Parmesan, traditional balsamic vinegar, and tortellini.


We drove to Venice. We stayed at a Hilton off the island and took an Uber to the island. We walked around, had cichetti and crudinos, and then grabbed dinner before heading back to the hotel. The restaurant we ate at formerly had a Michelin star, but is no longer as good.

Day 7

My brother left early in the morning to catch a flight back to the US. When I went to check out, the receptionist asked if I was part of the rally. I was very confused and said no I wasn’t aware of a rally. When I went downstairs to grab my car, I was surprised to find a row of 10 911’s in the garage. It looks like some other people were also traveling through the same hotel. I headed towards vrsic pass in Slovenia. The roads were not that great and crowded with bicyclists. Occasionally there were great stretches of roads. As I got closer to the top of the pass, the driving became incredibly frustrating as people were going less than 5mph up the pass. The way down was not so crowded but the roads were awful. The hairpin turns were cobblestone. Eventually I made it down and got on the highway to Lake Bled, which was beautiful.




I had lunch at a spot on the lake and then headed for Vienna. There was a lot of traffic on the highways there but eventually I made it. I found driving in Austria fairly stressful trying to navigate pedestrians, bicycles, and trams. Eventually I got to the hotel. I was disappointed to see the trim piece on the bottom of the bumper hanging off. I should have used the front axle lift a few times but forgot. The Porsche rides a little lower than my Tesla, so I’m still trying to figure out when to activate it. I saw another T in the garage! I grabbed dinner at the hotel eating an asparagus salad, paprika hendl, and apple streusel which were fantastic.

Day 8

I needed a relaxing day after the long drive the previous days. I gave my dirty clothes to housekeeping as I was out of clean clothes at this point, and then went out into the city. I grabbed Sacher torte and coffee, and then went to the music house.




The music house is a great museum for all ages. I headed back to the hotel for a quick nap, and then went on a walking tour around the city with a local guide who explained the history of the entire city. The guide talked a lot about queen sisi. It seems she’s a bit of a local legend. We walked by so many museums that I will have to come back and see a later time. It started pouring so I caught a bus back to the hotel. I ate at the hotel restaurant again. I found a fellow alone traveler and had dinner with him. I was happy to have the company. I used to love traveling alone, but now I really struggle with it. I made the mistake of eating a burger, which was disappointing relative to my favorite place in Austin.

Day 9

I woke up early and drove to the Vienna airport to pick up my wife. I was thankful that the store in the airport sold flowers, as our anniversary was a few days ago. We went back to the hotel and cleaned up.

A local guide named Christof met us at the hotel to take on a food tour of the city. We started by going to a local market in the suburbs. We stopped by a coffee shop and had cake and coffee for breakfast. Then, we went to another restaurant where we had toast with ham and fresh horseradish. I don’t drink alcohol, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that lemonades are a big deal in Vienna. We then went to an ice cream shop where we had a vanilla ice cream ball filled with apricot and coated with hazelnut. It was amazing! Next we went to a traditional Viennese restaurant, where we had Wiener schnitzel and potato salad. For desert we had Kaiser Shmarn which is the local favorite dessert.

We then went to another part of the city known for street food - the equivalent of food trucks in Austin. We had amazing Sausages. The local combo I mustard with fresh horseradish, which is a very interesting combination. We were so full at this point that we cut the food tour short and headed back to the hotel.

We got dressed up and headed to schonnbrunn palace. We booked a palace tour, dinner, and concert. The tour was much smaller than expected but interesting to see where Sisi lived. The dinner was mediocre. The concert was a lot of fun. It was a mix of Mozart, Haydn, and Strauss. The conductor did a great job of making it very entertaining. We went back to the hotel to get some sleep before more driving the next day.

Day 10

We woke up, ate breakfast, and hopped in the car to drive to Salzburg. Our guide the previous day had recommended going through a few places on the way to Salzburg as well as go to hangar 7 in Salzburg. We called hangar 7, but unfortunately they were closed that day for a private event. We decided to stop at Wolfgangsee for lunch. Then we went to the hotel in Salzburg. We spent the afternoon on the Sound of Music bus tour. It was pretty cheesy, but a good opportunity to see all the sights from the movie. Funny enough, the bus took us back to Wolfgangsee and then to a town called Mondsee.




In the evening, we ate in the roof of our hotel and then I walked about the town center. There was a concert going on in the castle gardens which was nice to listen to.

Day 11

We woke up and drove to Neuschwanstein castle. There are two castles there. We went to the older castle first.




I was amazed at all the artwork inside the castle. Definitely the nicest castle I had ever been to. We grabbed lunch and then did a tour of Neuschwanstein castle. This castle was incredible. The tour guide explained how the King was a little manic and wanted everything in the castle to be perfect. We drove to Freiburg im Breisgau. Once we got there, we walked around the city and grabbed dinner.

Day 12

Having driven a lot the previous day, the goal for this day was to take it easy. We went to the cathedral in Freiburg in the morning. There was a big market around the cathedral.




We grabbed breakfast which included the famous German chocolate cake. Next we drove to triberg. We grabbed cake number 2 and coffee and then went to the Black Forest museum. We then drove to Bad Wildbad.




Unfortunately we arrived 15 minutes too late to hike the observation tower. We drove to Baden Baden and ate a recently started restaurant called Restaurant Nigrum.

Day 13

We started off the day by going to Fredrichsbad Spa. We booked a private spa, which in hindsight was a mistake. We essentially just had a private hot tub to ourselves instead of going through all the different rooms in the spa. Then we drove to Baiersbronn. The road was amazing. I had a blast going through the tight curves. We had lunch at Hotel Bareiss which was fantastic!




We didn’t realize that the hotel had a full resort. We will definitely come back and stay several days at the resort. After lunch we headed to Sindelfingen. It was unrestricted Autobahn most of the way. I was able to hit 150 mph on a stretch without traffic until I hit traffic again. The car is so stable at high speed. We dropped the car off with Sal. We took everything from the car including the front license plate. Sal dropped us off at the train station and we caught the train to Frankfurt airport. We ate dinner at the Paulaner in the train station and stayed at the Hilton in the train station to catch our flight the next day.

Retrospective

The car is amazing. I am ecstatic with how all the options turned out, especially the color. I will be making some changes over time - wheels, tires, brakes, exhaust, turbos, etc but the car is much more capable than my driving proficiency right now.

I dreamed of this trip since I was 15 years old. I used to tinker with the configurator on 997’s and watch Top Gear where they drove around Europe. That feeling of making a dream come true 17 years in the making is like no other feeling in the world.

Mike981S

What an amazing experience! And being able to do the hard-core driving parts with your brother in a Ferrari and have the "true Ferrari breakdown" experience are memories for life! The Carrera T seems to be a great driver's car!

Funny that you took the same picture at the Stelvio pass that I took when getting to the closure sign . Based on their IG page, they are still cleaning the road on that side and are working on fixing avalanche damages.

asuresh8

Thank you! I was just reading about your trip, which sounds equally amazing!

TheDrivenGarage

Awesome trip report and great memories there. I am less than 20 days to go for my ED and reading others’ experiences has sustained me during the long wait!

Keep us posted on when you receive your car on the other side, did you put an AirTag in it?

ScottRich

Great trip and super trip report! I laughed at "We followed Google maps and it took us to a train." - I remember we were driving in that area years ago and I'm thinking "I don't know where this nav is taking me, that pass is not open..." when the nav said "Turn right onto the car train." The what?!?! But it worked perfectly and obviously saved a bunch of time.

asuresh8

Would love to hear about your trip as well!

No I completely forgot about putting an AirTag. I only remembered when we were flying out the next day. I think people are saying to just tape one under the seat or to the top of the glovebox.

Angryinch

Great pics! Looks like a terrific trip and lots of area covered!

TheDrivenGarage

Will definitely be posting about it! I am hoping to get confirmation that I can exceed the 6k KMs. I read an old post here that said that the law is <6 months no mileage restriction, and >6 months must be less than 6k KM, and Porsche being conservative attaches the 6K limit. I have a month of time and friends in Barcelona, Wales, Hungary, & Romania. Would love to see them all, but 6k KM is too tight to make it happen. Will see!

SAC

Any words on the 6k km limit from Porsche? Thanks.

Mike981S

Here is the statement from Rebecca Seidl (Werksabholung Zuffenhausen | Marktbetreuung PCNA & PCL):

In English: I can only again point out that it is really important to stay below the 6000km.

I know some people claim they did more than that and had no problems getting the VAT back. Unless the 19% additional cost is not an issue for you, I would not risk it.

asuresh8

Update that car has made it’s way back to me!

I dropped off the car on June 8 in Sindelfingen. It was loaded onto a ship at Emden and left June 18. Reached Houston, TX on July 20, and got to Austin, TX on July 28.

The car was dirty most of the time I was in Europe so didn’t see the rock chips until the dealer had washed the car. There’s a handful on the front bumper, hood, and rear quarter panel. The ppf shop said they could fill them in so they won’t be noticeable once the ppf is on, but really wish Porsche would have offered ppf.

TheDrivenGarage

Congrats on getting your baby back! I am working on my trip report this week! I dropped my car this morning with Salvador! Those chips will cover really well and then under the PPF it will be like new!
I am hoping for a fast trip to the east coast and then to the Midwest.