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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.
My wife has a full blown cold by this point and it was pretty cold and rainy on Tuesday so we slept in and made sure to get the included cake buffet before taking advantage of the very nice steam room and sauna.
Wed we did the same, but the weather looked sunny in the morning even though the forecast said thunderstorms. We decided to go check out the Roßfeldstraße, which is a panoramic toll road on a high ridge to the east of Berchtesgaden affording panoramic views of Salzburg and the surrounding valley, as well as views into Berchtesgaden. Even though forecast was cloudy, the clouds were high in the morning so it was still possible to see down. Some areas were in the fog. So even if the forecast is not sunny, there still is hope that part of the day will have good visibility. There was an Audi TT and 718 Boxster zooming up the other side and we saw them stop at the top. I thought the 718 sounded like a real Porsche blaring up the hill despite all the reviews to the contrary, but that's just my impression in passing. Lots of people biking up the pass as well.
Afterwards I got gas in Hallein, Austria, which gps said was the closest one although there turned out to be a gas station near Königssee also. But the drive through Austria was nice and gas is cheaper there anyway.
Went back to the hotel for more sauna/pool time.
We checked out Thursday and because it was our one sunny day we had to do Lake Königssee. The parking lot for Jennerbahn and Königssee is shared. Not all the spots are GT4 friendly and some of the spots are really crowded. We parked further out towards the exit which worked well.
Königssee is the definition of touristy with hotels, gift shops, and cafes geared to tourists from all over the world. The main attraction is to ride the electric passenger boat around the lake, possibly stopping at the St Bartholomä church or the far end of the lake. You can also take the cable car up to Mount Jenner and hike around there or even hike back down to the lake and take the boat back. We didn't have much time so decided to do the boat ride and walk to the smaller lake Obersee at the end of Lake Königssee.
We had to queue up to buy tickets for the boat ride and it turned out the earliest available boat was an hour later at 2pm. The last boat leaves from the other side at 5:40pm or so and everyone will be trying to get on that last boat because there is no other way back. If you can, get here earlier in the day to enjoy the sights more.
Most people get off at the St Bartholomä stop for the pilgrimage church but it looked crowded and the building itself is not that impressive, more the setting. A photo is obligatory, which we got from the boat, and we continued to the Salet stop to hike to Obersee.
We were on the second to last boat back and the queue for get on was pretty long. It isn't even peak season yet. We got back at 6:30pm or 7pm and hit the road for our next destination Kaprun Austria, which is close to the Hohe Tauren national park and the resort town of Zell Am See.
Desert at Alpenhof
View from Alpenhof room. So that's what's behind the clouds
View from Roßfeldstraße
View from Roßfeldstraße
Hit 3000km at the Roßfeldstraße entry gate. Break in done.
We left Königssee and headed for Kaprun. The roads in the Austrian Alps are just as beautiful or even more so than the German Alps. The Deusche Alpenstraße isn't actually a more scenic drive than all the surrounding alpine roads. It just happens to have an official designation with official tourist destinations.
On the way to Kaprun I saw a pair of small birds flittering above the road. I though they would get out of the way but they dropped to about car level just as I reached them and I swerved quickly. We felt weight transfer in the car for the first time and it was really tight. Unfortunately I still grazed the birds. When we got to our destination I checked the driver's side for signs of bird impact. I hoped it didn't get funneled into the engine intake but when I looked inside there it was, probably slightly roasted. It's a small sparrow like bird that looks like this. I looked around for a stick to dig out the bird.
We stayed at Appartement Wälderhof and rented a studio. I arranged to use the garage with the host but they were on vacation so I parked outside the first night. The relatives (mom?) at Pension Christophorus next door keep an eye on the place while they're gone and got me the room key but didn't know about the garage. She also did not speak English so it was difficult to ask about it. I found the host's brother the next morning and he let me use his garage opener to park the car inside since he was going on a trip the next few days.
It was 9PM so I was stressing about finding a place to eat. The funny thing about Kaprun is that there are lots of arab visitors driving rented Mercedes and several halal restaurants with Arabic signage. One of them, a pizza restaurant was open and in walking distance so we were saved. Dinner cost 23€ for the two of us. Austria sure is affordable compared with Switzerland and Germany.
Weather was forecast as thunderstorms the entire time we were there but the mornings started out sunny. The clouds build toward evening and the first day there was a flash storm that was over in 30 minutes around 7pm.
The first day my wife developed a fever, probably from the boat trip/hike so we spent the whole day in the apartment. I walked to the local pharmacy and stopped by the supermarket Adeg to get acetaminophen, breakfast/lunch foods. No need to start up the GT4 to get groceries 1km away. Caught up on laundry and found a Billa market just across the street to get ingredients to make chicken soup. It was a nice change of pace to stay in an apartment and have self-cooked meals at home. I made chicken soup the next two nights. I also had a craving for Caprese salad and Billa had some pretty cheap Mozzarella cheese and balsamic vinegar. Their cherry tomatoes were on the vine and surprisingly good. I was shocked that all the sausages had MSG. I probably spent 30 minutes looking at every single sausage package to try to find one without MSG but I guess that's the thing in Austria.
The second day was also partly cloudy in the morning and my wife felt well enough to go for a drive. We wanted to try the Großglocker high road, which cost something like 35€ per vehicle. He first part is like a mountain pass through snow capped ranges. On the other side you can drive up to a restaurant near the Großglocker peak, which at 3800m is the highest mountain in Austria. Unfortunately the peak seemed to be in the clouds that day. The drive was long but striking. It started to rain as we headed back and we got home in time for me to make chicken soup for the second night in a row.
We checked out Sunday morning and headed to our final destination Alsace.
Sunday we checked out of Kaprun and hit the road to the Alsace region of France, a 7 hour drive. We started out towards Munich because both the Navigon and Google Maps were suggesting that was the fastest route. However we noticed many areas of slowdown on Google. We got stuck in one of them for 15 minutes and decided to turn around and take the alternate route through Innsbruck and Switzerland. This happened to be the same day a crazy downpour stopped the 24 hours of Nürburgring with hail and ice so in retrospect, going through Switzerland may have been the better choice that day. We hit a heavy downpour somewhere past Innsbruck. It was raining buckets, washing the car clean of bug guts, and the autobahn was like a river. Luckily that section of the road in Austria passes through a series of tunnels so we had moments of respite from the rain.
Passing through Switzerland again was easy. They didn't really stop traffic. We passed by Geneva and contemplated stopping to look for chocolate but it was getting late. We followed the signs to Basel, then to Mulhouse, and finally for Strasbourg.
We arrive in Ribeauvillé at around 9pm and checked in to Hotel de la Tour. I had reserved the covered parking spot but there was a 986 boxster in that spot. After looking at the parking situation it seemed like parking outdoors in the lot was better. The covered spot was also the entry for an apartment room and people needed to squeeze by to get to their room.
Driving through the gutters of the old central street of the city was pretty intimidating in a lowered car. The alley leading to the secure parking lot was also very narrow. It was totally manageable though when taken carefully.
We found a place nearby open late for dinner L’Arbalete. Their pizzas are good. The other food is just so-so.
Covered parking is tight
Streets of Ribeauvillé
Pizza at L'Arbelete
Monday morning we identified several places to see so we tried walking to them but they were ALL closed. There's something about Mondays and Tuesdays in Alsace where shops or restaurants are commonly closed. The hotel was pretty empty too until Wednesday night. Alsace is probably better to visit Wednesday through Saturday.
We got some things from the supermarket for our French friends back home and decided maybe this would be the right day to drive to the Black Forest for the B500 Schwarzwaldhochstraße that switchface raved about. My wife hadn't been driving much since she was sick so this was her chance to get a feel for driving the car.
Oh getting out of Ribeauvillé was a real pain in the GT4. The main exit passes through four speed bumps. I ran along outside the car to observe the front lip and help my wife take the speed bumps at an angle. One of them was angled poorly with a dip in the road right before the bump. The lip touched the ramp no matter what angle we tried. I waved past other cars to go first. Some gave me sympathetic looks. In the end we tried crossing all the way over to the opposite lane and then coming back across the ramp. That worked. The rest of the speed bumps were ok at a moderate angle.
We headed off to the B500. It's actually quite far taking traffic into account. We took the L92 shortcut instead of following B28 all the way. It is much shorter but it was very narrow with lots of fast local traffic and being forested, the road was slick with rain moisture. It was gusty, foggy and cold when we reached the B500. The road was pretty much in the clouds. It wasn't really enjoyable so we decided to stop at the hotel Zuflucht on the L92 for some soup and Black Forest cake. On the way back we stopped at Durbach to find the Schloss Staufenberg winery. We actually got lost on the way to the castle as it is tucked away within some vineyard hills. I started following the hiking signs and ended up driving on some dirt hiking paths before realizing my mistake. Everything was closed by the time we got there around 7:30pm, but we had a great view of the Rhine valley towards Strasbourg.
We took some photos and headed back to our hotel to try to make it back in time for dinner.
At this point we were running low on fuel. 75km of range to go 65km to our hotel. I thought there was a Total station on the way here but apparently Google led us a different way back so we didn't see it. The A35 in France has surprisingly few gas stations and so we got a little worried about running out of fuel. I decided to stop in Sélestat and look for gas there.
The Navigon led us to an E Leclerc supermarket gas station. To our dismay the pump rejected my credit cards and the station was not manned so we had to move on. At this point we had 30km of range left calculated based on slow highway driving so I was getting nervous every time I had to restart the engine.
We tried the Supermarche gas station but again the pump rejected our cards. The next gas station in the road was a Total. At least this one has an attendant. We felt immense relief when the pump here approved us for an 100€ fill up. I ended up pumping 58L. Extended range tank confirmed. at this point it was 10pm. All the restaurants are closed by now so we just went to the McDonalds next to the Supermarche and got a chicken sandwich and chicken nuggets to take away for dinner.
Finding our way back to Ribeauvillé we found that the A35 on ramp was closed. We had to follow the detour “Deviatión” signs back through the center of Sélestat to the next A35 on ramp. We got back to the hotel around 11pm and finally ate dinner. What a day.
Lesson: go to real gas stations with attendants. Supermarkets may not necessarily accept Visa at the pump.
There's actually an infrequent bus service between Ribeauvillé and Colmar train station used by schoolchildren and commuters. The trip is 30 minutes. Seeing how much of a pain it was to drive around here with all the speed bumps we wanted to give the bus a try.
We woke up early to catch the 8:10 bus, planning to find breakfast at a cafe in Colmar. We arrived at the train station in Colmar and walked over to Petite Venise, about a 10 minute walk. When we got there around 9am it was dead quiet and empty. It seemed like nothing was open. We went to Gilg for pastries but they didn't have drink or seating. We found a cafe (tea room) where we were able to order tea and sit down while waiting for stores to open. Finally around 10:30 the tourists started to show up in the streets and shops were open. We wandered about the old town of Colmar browsing stores for gifts for friends back home, and hunting for good chocolate and pastries. We liked old town Colmar a lot. While it has tourists, it also has stores catered to locals - such as furniture and home decor. Looking up at the roofs we were able to spot stork nests. The most dramatic one is perched atop a tower of the central cathedral with its gilded roof.
For lunch we decided on a Japanese restaurant next to the 700 year old Dominican church. The strangest thing was they were playing Chinese music videos inside the restaurant. It was the oddest thing - eating Japanese food while listening to Chinese pop music in a historically German part of France.
We stopped by the monoprix for some cheap bottled water. (Carola is the local brand) and found a souvenir stork for 5€30, which is less than half what the gift shops on the streets were selling it for.
We followed the signs for the actual Petite Venise quarter and stopped by the covered market. The covered market has docks on the canal for unloading goods and there were also carp-like fish in the waters.
Petite Venise itself is quieter than the old town. It seems more residential and colorful. We came back to the place we were at in the morning and it looked like a completely different place in the sun with tourists milling about.
We caught the 5:10pm bus 106 back to Ribeauvillé and had a nice ride through several villages in wine country. One of them had a driveway with a 356 and what looked like a 911 Carrera.
We spent the evening after dinner wandering the quiet streets of Ribeauvillé at dusk.
Today is a sunny day, perfect for riding bikes through the vineyards. Our hotel helped us get a local mountain bike rental with Bike Air. We got lightweight aluminum frame, smooth running bikes with disc brakes for 12€ per person for the afternoon, 4 hours.
Riquewihr is only 2km or so away by a backroad but there is a substantial hill if you are out of shape or aren't accustomed to biking. It was very freeing to ride out in the open air feeling the wind against your face and seeing the vines whiz by.
Riquewihr is a charming town. We stopped at the Vilmain for lunch. Unfortunately we got started late and took longer than expected so there were no sandwiches available at 2pm. We got a quiche and onion tart instead. We got the formula but when I calculated it later, a la carte would have actually been cheaper. Grrr… The desserts, a millefeulle and a raspberry bombe were delicious. Fueled up we continued our ride to find the Carrera and 356 in the next town but they were gone. Along the way we took some dirt roads and found ourselves next to a pen of sheep and young lambs. We returned via farm roads through the vineyard using the three castles on the hill above Ribeauvillé and a reference point for direction and maps.me as a guide for the paths.
We looked for stork nests in Ribeauville and counted at least 4.
We had dinner at Au Relais des Minestrels. we got their menu. The medium rare duck liver bits with crispy bacon and poached eggs rare were amazing.
We vacuumed the car at the E Leclerc making sure to take back roads to avoid speed bumps where possible. Grabbed some sandwiches and croissants at the supermarket bakery for lunch.
We took the quickest route back to Stuttgart. Once we got to the German autobahn I hit the fast lane and tried to see how fast I dared to go. I follows an X5 for a bit st 200-215kph before getting stuck behind some traffic. I hit a top speed of 225 kph before chickening out. About 30 minute away from Zuffenhausen I was slowly passing a truck with some other cars when I started hearing the crackling noise of rocks hitting the car and then pop! There was another crack in the bottom part of the windshield. Of all places I've only gotten windshield hits on the autobahn in Germany on the A5. The Porsche windshield seems to be made of eggshells! I'm wondering now if getting rain sensing glass was a mistake.
We stopped by the car wash on Gottfried-Keller Straße but the Navigon had to lead us astray one final time. At the Neuwirthaus exit, it led us to take a right turn into a narrow residential neighborhood which wound its way down the hill to the back side of the Porsche factory. It then led us to try to cross the back gate of the factory. The digital maps don't seem to know where the gates of the Porsche factory are located. Bunches of Porsche factory workers were watching as we made a 3 point turn to find the main road.
The car wash is coin operated and provides several options. Thankfully this one has an English translation. I did a shampoo spray, high pressure wash, then high pressure rinse. It didn't quite get all the bugs and grime off so I had to use my optimum no rinse bottle and the microfiber I brought to wipe off the bugs. Thankfully I got the xpel wrap in front so I could scrub with impunity. I went for a second round of rinsing and followed up with the wax spray and no spot rinse. I'm not exactly sure if the last two do anything. At this point it was 3:40 and we were cutting it close to return the car by 4 although the Factory collection office is just around the corner. We rushed back and checked in with the delivery office. They sent our delivery representative Ronnie to check the car back in. I told him about the curbed wheels and windshield dings. He said that was very common in Europe with the narrow roads and tight parking garages. He said our car was in really good shape and that it was very unusual but good for us to have washed the car before returning. I got some insurance information from him and he called a cab for us to bring us to the hotel. We shared some of the photos of our trip with him and he said they were very nice. They could even be advertising photos. Lol. We said goodbye and took the cab to stay this time at the Altdorf Schlossgarten. I made the booking last minute so I didn't get the Porsche rate. Do try to book early and use the Porsche rate because the room rate goes up very quickly as the hotel fills up, especially if a trade show is in town.
The Altdorf is in a bland looking building but the interior is very classy. I would say the Steigenberger is the nicer hotel but the Schlossgarten is more classy with crown molding and a chandelier in the room. It is located right on the pedestrian mall of Stuttgart central.
We checked in and strolled down the mall for some final shopping. We picked up Ützel Brützel again for take away to eat in our room for dinner. The basic Döner Classic is the one to get.
The next morning I requested a 1pm checkout and we spent 2 hours at the Mercedes Benz museum. MB provides a historical context having heritage as some of the initial inventors of the automobile. Their timeline intersperses MB history with significant political and cultural events. I remember pointing out the Cassius Clay championship headline to my wife. Unbelievably, he (Muhammed Ali) passed away that same day. RIP.
The highlights of the museum to me were the oldest Mercedes car, the cars from the 50s-60s, and the 30s Silver Arrows.
We took the S6 s-bahn back to the hotel, gathered our things, and headed across the street to the DB station for a train to Frankfurt where we boarded our flight home and thus concluded our European road trip adventure.
Traveling tips: there are food kiosks selling sandwiches and other light lunches right next to the train platforms at Stuttgart HBF. No need to rush to buy food outside before entering the boarding area.
If you're not flying Lufthansa out of FRA, be prepared to do some hunting to find your airline’s ticket counter. We flew United and it was one tiny desk among the hundreds of ticket desks in the check in area. I was confused and at first headed toward terminal Z to check in. I had to go through customs three times to bring my luggage back out, check it in, and head back in to the gate. I got a stamp for each crossing though, 3 stamps in total in one day, as a consolation.
Congrats on finally getting your car home from Germany. I just now returned myself, having turned my car in as well. And I had no idea you were from the Bay Area. Damn... we're like twins - both with white GT4s, both purchased from Fletcher Jones.
How long was your wait from date of turn-in to arrival at FJ?
You'll probably be the fast white GT4 going 2x as fast as us. We're total beginners. Looking forward to some local hpdes.
Once it got on the boat it was about 5 weeks but for us it was 9 weeks from drop off to being available for pick up. There was some kind of delay getting shipped out from the factory at the time.
Coaching newbies is what I do! Come and join us up at Thunderhill 3-4 September. The Golden Gate Region of the PCA is hosting an HPDE. I'll be coaching. Fantastic group of folks and IMHO the best event hands down.
06-04-2016, 01:09 PM
Day 12-14: Berchtesgaden
