loungin

Had a nice breakfast with the host. One of the other guests recognized the GT4. He said, that's a nice car. Take good care of it. It'll be a classic.

The back roads in Burgandy are really nice for driving.
Our locations were all in Pommard.
We drove to the center of Pommard and parked across from the church. We dropped by Domaine de courcel first and were treated to an amazing cellar tasting. First taste was out of the barrel. The other 4 wines were all from 94. Very subtle complex wines. We asked if they were available. They don't sell to individuals. It was a real treat to be able to taste.




Next we visited the wine maker that we parked in front of. It wasn't anything special so I won't mention it.




We had lunch at Aupres Du Clocher, a very classy place. We got the 3 course menu. A meal here takes 2 hours. We got some wine at Domaine Vaudoisey-Creusefond in the afternoon and walked around the town.




Fancy restaurant in Pommard

Finally we drove down to Chateau De La Rochepot. It was already closed at 5pm so we just walked around the outside. One of the locals walked around our car at peered at it. I introduced myself and we tried to chat a bit although he only spoke French and I only speak English.

We then took a back road into Beaune for dinner at La Benaton. Along the way we found a great spot for a shot of the chateau.




GT4 admiring the view of Chateau Rochepot

On the way into Beaune we found a self service car wash and gave the car its first spray down. At the gas station we met a 987 Cayman owner and chatted with him a bit about the car. He's from the home town of Michelin and is part of the Porsche club there.

La Benaton is an amazing French Japanese restaurant. We got the 4 course menu. It came with the biggest scoop of foie goie I have had. We had to share it. Escargot appetizer, pigeon breast main, cheese plate, and then dessert followed by tea with petite fours. It's more like a 6 course serving with the pre appetizer and the petite fours after dessert. Dinner took 3 hours and I was dead tired driving 1 hour through the hills back to Le Castel arriving at midnight.





Appetizer at Le Benaton

loungin

We had one more appointment to taste wines at Michel Gros in Vosnee Romanee.

We put in the wrong destination in Google so we ended up taking these amazing backroad through wine country.

The route was something like
D108
D122 route de grand cru
D31
D116
D109b?
D115
D115c

There are some little roads with no traffic where you can open throttle and exercise the car.

It would be worth spending a day in the backcountry just turning on every little road you find and exploring. Plenty of Europeans seem to do this as we could hear motors revving and exhaust blaring through the hills every once in a while.

We ran late with our appointment because we got lost. The wines were good so we got some at Michel Gros

We grabbed a quick lunch at a bakery and hit to road to make our dinner appointment in Lausanne.

Getting on the toll road to Switzerland we saw a black 70s or 80s 911 as we were pulling out of the rest stop. He gave us a thumbs up as he sped off. I tried to catch up but eventually wanted to back off down to the speed limit.

Google said it would be fastest to drive through the mountains to Lausanne. However the road signs showed a different way on a bigger road.

The road was tiny and unmarked at times. It ran through several small towns and had several detours due to road construction. The road was very bad condition with lots of construction gravel and rocks on the ground. France in general has lots of rocks on the side of the road especially at turns. The scenery was nice, running through the mountains and forest. There were countryside cows and horses by the side of the road. I was mad at the road condition wishing I had gone toward Lake Geneva instead. So I drove the car a bit harder. We were between 1200 -1400 km on the car. The car handled the corners fine while I was getting angry at all the gravel debris hitting the car.

The Swiss border couldn't come soon enough. At the border a guard just asked us where our destination was. There was no difficulty getting in even with the temp plate.

We stopped by the gas station after the border. It was on the left side of the road so I had to cross waiting traffic. Scraped the front lip turning in because of the slope and the potholes in the lot. I think it's basically unavoidable if you want to experience all these places during your trip.

Once in Switzerland the highway became much smoother and cleaner. People drove more orderly and obey speed limits more strictly. We saw a Valencia orange 1M that checked us out. He tried to get me to pull up but I didn't understand. We waved hi. He then sped off, his exhaust blaring, and maybe wanted me to follow to hear the GT4s exhaust. But I didn't have an opening in the traffic to follow and didn't know the speed limits.

We had a dinner appointment at 7pm at Le Berceau des sens at the school of hotel management outside Lausanne. Everyone dressed very nicely for this restaurant where the students learn and practice first hand how service in a fine restaurant works. Also a 3 course meal that is more like 6 with the pre appetizer, cheese plate after the main, and petite fours at the end. It took 3 hours again! Great restaurant though with a great view of the hills. Make a reservation if you have a chance. Oh if your car is low, go for dinner and park at the lot in front instead of the restaurant parking down the ramp in the back. I looked at the ramp and there's lots of scrape markers on the crest. Switzerland doesn't have the most lowered car friendly roads and parking spots.

We headed into the Gryueres countryside to our bnb in Les Moulins to sleep next to the cows.




Vosnee Romanee




Michel Gros wine




Le Benaton appetizer. Morel mushrooms. Wife says they're rare. Never heard of them before.




More morels with the main

loungin

Drove to Rossinière and walked around the neighborhood to take pictures of the lake. Drove to Gruyeres to walk around the walled town and stopped at a cafe for a snack.
Had dinner at the bnb. Raclette, which is a cheese you melt and you put it over potatoes with jacket (skin), also eaten with gherkins (little pickled cucumbers), and little pickled onions.
Visited the cows living beneath our room. It felt like visiting friends and we really enjoyed seeing life in the Alps although all my clothes now smell like cow.




View from B n B kitchen in Les Moulins




Hills of Rossinière. wife wanted to post this one.






Gruyeres parking lot




Gruyeres

loungin

It was pouring rain. There was new snow on the mountains from overnight so we took it slow and decided to go to Lausanne to hunt for chocolate.
Lausanne is an amazing city. It is by the lake and surrounded by snow capped mountains. The downtown is very hilly like San Francisco. The streets and parking are not GT4 friendly. Some parking spaces require you to drive up a curb. We saw lots of Porsches. It's a pretty wealthy city.
We parked in the train station Gare lot. It seemed to have an ok approach. The spaces were cramped but the car came out ok. People are are mostly locals it seems so they're respectful of other people’s cars. I think next time I would have preferred to wait for surface parking.
We tried Blondel Chocolates and Durig. Blondel is more of a confectioner. Durig has the good stuff - liquor ganache filled pralines, pure cocoa for cooking, single plantation bars. That's the stuff. Got some sandwich material at the Coop supermarket and made our own lunch. The bread was much fresher than the refrigerator case sandwiches.

When we left I had my wife walk me out so I don't curb another wheel. Out in the city there were lots of ominous looking speed bumps. Google takes you down these streets. I wish there was some way to avoid them. I was holding up traffic trying to take the speed bumps diagonally. We actually made it through Lausanne without a scratch I think. This city, though amazing, is better for a non-Porsche visit, but we just had to find some good chocolate.

We stopped by Bern and the Paul Klee museum, the one that looks like a sine wave, because there was traffic.

Our destination was we Beatenburg above lake Thun to our hotel Gloria. I highly recommend this hotel. Vilma at the reception was friendly and sarcastic in greeting us. I reserved parking which they arranged with the Dorint next door. She asked why, we have plenty of parking just in front. I said it's a special car and its new. She said why, it's just a car, oh I know you men and your cars. She said the owner Bernhard is a car guy and would go crazy about seeing the GT4.

You can reserve parking at the Dorint with hotel Gloria. The garage is easy to access. I'd recommend it. Parking outside Gloria is pretty safe as well. Plenty of parking for the size of the hotel. Some of it is for restaurant guests. The view from Beatenburg is incredible. If you're thinking of visiting Interlaken I would suggest staying up the mountainside in Beatenburg instead.



A park in Lausanne




Lausanne





Chocolates from Durig




Paul Klee museum in Bern




View from room at Gloria in Beatenburg above lake Thun

loungin

Opened the windows and woke up to a brilliant sunny day with blue skies. We had to choose between hiking maybe and driving. We chose to look for Swiss passes to drive.




At breakfast we met Bernhard. He gave us suggestions for driving and the best ways to get there, skipping the main highways with all their tunnels and taking surface roads around the lake. Sustenpass and Grimselpass are closed but still worth driving as far up as you can go at this time and traffic is more sparse because it has no through traffic. We got some great pictures.

After the driving we went to Lauterbrunnen to see the falls. Trümmelbachfälle. It's worth a visit. The water gushed through the canyons and tunnels in the mountain. The power is quite amazing plus you get some awesome views of the valley on the hike. It's a sheer rock valley like Yosemite with waterfalls along the walls.

We then dropped by Grindelwald. We saw some pictures of Grindelwald on planet 9 that looked amazing and we were searching for that spot. Grindelwald was disappointingly touristy. It's like a major city for tourists out in the mountains. We drove to the end of the road and found a spot to take a picture of the mountains. I'd suggest asking people from Switzerland for the nice places to see in Grindelwald. It was otherwise quite claustrophobic and it's not even high season yet.

We went back to Beatenburg for dinner and the sunset.







On the way to Sustenpass




Way to Sustenpass




Furthest we could go on sustenpass






Furthest we could go to grimselpass




Trümmelbachfälle in Lauterbrunnen




Past all the touristy stuff in Grindelwald








sunset at Hotel Gloria

otisdog

Wow! Great report...you are really doing it up! Looks like you're having some great meals. Thanks for taking the time to post. Any idea when Grimsel / Susten passes will be open?

24Chromium

Wow! Just WOW! Gorgeous scenery, great stories. I'm so jealous. And suddenly hungry...

24Chromium

What camera are you using?

skuplist

Now that's a ride review! Picking up my Spyder in two weeks. What hotels in Switzerland were you comfortable with parking. I'm planning on doing the passes also. Hopefully they will be completely open in two weeks. My route for the 4 weeks:

Stuttgart
Switzerland
Italy
Slovenia
Croatia (down the coast to Dubrovnik)
Montenegro
Austria
Leipzig

user 83838290

While in Croatia and around Makarska, take a trip up to Sveti Jure mountain for a sensational view just few clicks from the coast.
Btw, driving on Jadranska magistrala (coast hwy) all the way down to Dubrovnik is a blast. Be careful as the asphalt is REALLY slippery in spots when wet and even in dry conditions does not hold really well.

skuplist

Thanks. I have ridden motorcycles down the coastal hwy. I have not been up Sveti Jure. I hope to go to Hvar also. I'm concerned with Spyder front bumper clearance going on to the car ferries.

loungin

Lots of unofficial sites out there but after some searching this seems to be official: Klausenpass opened exactly the day after the posted date on this site.
http://www.tcs.ch/de/tools/verkehrsi...uelle-lage.php

The Swiss passes are definitely the highlight of this driving trip.


Photos brought to you iPhone 6s and 6s plus =). Mostly 6s which has distortion around the edges that make the GT4 look like a toy car in some photos. A few photos courtesy of my wife's 6S Plus, which has a much better camera, and some of her photo app filter wizardry.

I only stayed at two places in Switzerland as it is really expensive in the nice areas. Gloria in Beatenburg is good and you can also reserve nice garage parking with the Dorint next door. By corollary the Dorint would also be a nice place to stay for your car. =). It helps to find an email for the hotel and ask them. Reserving helps a lot if the parking area is crowded. Sometimes you have to insist and explain you have a brand new, expensive car which you want to park in a covered space.


Another tip: I brought along an empty spray bottle, an 1 fl oz hotel shampoo container of Optimum no rinse car wash, and some premium microfiber towels. It's raining every other day or so, that I haven't had to use it much but sometimes it helps for emergency removal of bird poop and insect guts. I mix it using the clay lube ratio. 2 oz per 1 gallon, so I can make 0.5 gallon of clay lube which sort of works as a quick detailer/ rinseless wash. It doesn't feel right to wipe too hard on the paint, but on the ppf, I can go at those bug guts.

The car is not going to be new anymore after our trip but the rides and photos are worth it. Almost at 3000 km now, which is fully broken in.

trebien

I picked up my GT4 almost a month ago in Leipzig... just now finding my way into Italy from Slovenia, Croatia before that.

It sounds like you know the roads... but driving down to Split was about as far as I wanted to go, due to traffic... I'd rather have the time for Istria and Slovenia.

On that note... I also drove across Hungary and Romania, so my viewpoint might be skewed. ;-)

Slovenia is small, but gorgeous... after Ljubljana definitely hit Lake Bled and Vršič Pass... then down the Soca River Valley.

I'm now cutting across Italy, then France, Spain... and into the UK for Ireland & Scotland... not sure from there.

Safe travels!


Vršič Pass, Slovenia

switchface

Your food pics are making my hungry! I'm definitely jealous of your weather, getting to ride all of the passes and having those amazing views of the lake Great shots!

Dr. Ferdinand

Subscribed so I can live vicariously, and be reminded of my very own ED once upon a time!