The GTS Chronicles - Getting Two/True Sportscars - Delivery Adventure - 2020-2023

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Sunday, July 23, 2023 - The Good Stuff, At Last

The smorgasbord of twisty road adventuring begins...

Ok, now. Today. Today was the day. The day when we'd really be hitting the "good stuff". When we refer to "good stuff", we mean the highest quality sportscar roads: tight, twisty, scenic, long. Not just a hairpin or two; no - long stretches of intricate curves and twisties, enough to make your hands sweat. If your hands are sweating, it's good.

The first order of business was a bit of breakfast at our Landhaus. It was the typical European-style continental affair, with lots of sliced cheeses and cold-cuts, but it was pretty extensive and there was nothing to complain about.

Pre-departure prep

Next, we undertook a bit of a re-pack activity. Our initial pack-up back in Leipzig had been fine, but as the days were passing by we found that we had not located the right things in the optimal locations for easy access. Having that critical camera mounting bolt in some random bag at the bottom of the frunk, underneath a bunch of other stuff, well, that was just slowing us down and causing frustration. We did a complete un-pack and re-pack to put the things we needed most close at hand.

Prepping for the day's adventure

Better organization

Antenna Routing

Next, we decided to do another car cleanup. Yesterday's dusty mishap with the farm thresher and the bugs splattered over the bumpers from yesterday's warm summer night drive pushed us over the edge of acceptable dirtiness. Fortunately, there was a handy self-guided pressure car wash not more than two hundred metres from our Gasthaus.

Getting a little buggy

Morning Cleanup

Finally ... we were ready to depart. Hmm ... 11 a.m. AGAIN. We weren't being particularly good at getting going early, were we? Something we would have to try to improve on.

I had positioned us at our location in the western Austrian Alps because I had been eyeing a good road in this part of Austria ever since our 2018 M2 Euro Delivery trip. Known as the Nockalmstrasse, this is a relatively new (built around 1980) road in the province of Carinthia, primarily aimed as being a scenic drive, and as many of these scenic-focused drives are, it was a toll road (20 Euros per vehicle). It wound over the medium-height Nockberge mountains, getting up into sub-alpine and alpine territory. It looked to be perfectly paved and had many excellent twists and curves.

The Nockalmstrasse

We were excited to drive along our first "real" twisty of the trip. The only concern was the fact that today was a dreaded "3S" day: a Sunny Summer Sunday. Sunny Summer Sundays (and its close brother, Sunny Summer Saturdays) are generally bad because they meant the road was likely to be clogged with slow tourist traffic. But such was life. We were here, we had two beautiful Porsche sportscars, and we were gonna experience the Nockalmstrasse. Even if it was at a tourist crawl from time-to-time.

Up the Turrachtal

We headed west from the car park, soon turning south on the B95, a well-paved highway leading up the narrow forested Turrachtal valley . The road was sufficiently curvy following the base of the valley, next to the little rushing watercourse of the Turrach river. The gradually rising valley topped out at the Turracher Höhe pass, complete with little pond and a ski resort, and then we descended back down the valley draining the side opposite the pass, where we reached the start of the Nockalmstrasse Toll road. Time for a stop to snap a picture to commemorate the first of the good twisties!

The Nockalmstrasse

After our sign photo-ops and after paying the toll entrance at the kiosk a short ways beyond, we began our ascent of the Nockalmstrasse. At first it was simply a pleasant forest road leading uphill, without much in the way of curves, but as the we reached treeline, the road started to curve about in a most satisfying manner. It was a nice mix of moderate curves with a handful of nice tight hairpins.

Unfortunately, the "3S" effect was at full power, with a ton of slow-moving vehicles in the really good stuff. Occasionally there was a gap; gaps where we got glimpses of the handling of our cars. Luke's voice crackled over the radio: "So, Mr. Lavigne ... your first hard-core mountain switchbacks. How do you feel about your new steed?". My answer? Solid torque in the midrange, excellent grip and a very well-planted rear. Shifts were crisp, rev-matching and heel-and-toeing a breeze. Perhaps a little bit of understeer in the tightest hairpins?

Luke's Thoughts

[on the Nockalmstrasse...]

Nockalmstrasse Pass. Top down. Good temperature and sun / shade. We hit a very enjoyable road uphill and as we get to the higher treeline it opens up into some pretty nice, tight stuff. Our first real hairpins at last!

Now, somewhat unleashed to 5500 RPM, this machine really pulls out of a first gear hairpin. Wow. I'm finding myself having to lift off and shift fast to not take any more revs, so quickly do they build. We're just not ready to hit the higher RPM yet as we want as sensible a break-in as possible. First impressions? Tons of grip and torque. What an engine. And there's still another 2300 RPM to unleash.

As I did with the M2 when I got it, I was driving with stability control completely off (in Porsche parlance, this means driving with "PSM" fully off). My philosophy (and I know many will disagree) is to ramp a car gradually up to its limits without interventions enabled, so I can really understand what the chassis is naturally like. Although clearly in these small sections of open road, we had not come anywhere close to those limits.

On the Nockalmstrasse

Seeing as it was around lunchtime, we decided to stop at one of the especially stunning roadside pullouts - of which there are many - along the high alpine section of the road.

One in particular ("Reidn 13", or turn 13) was especially good. Above the treeline, on the outside of an open corner, had enough space for two cars, and had two-picnic tables. Perfect. Not only was it an extremely scenic place for us to have lunch, but we could use this as a bit of a base for Jenn to set up the camera for drive-by shots and for me to fly the drone and get some aerial video sequences.

Arriving Turn 13

We stopped and had a nice, luxurious picnic lunch, sampling the various tasty German snacks we had purchased a couple of days before near Nuremburg. The afternoon's weather was intermittent sun and clouds, with a bit of a haze in the air. Up here in the alpine at about 6500 feet (2000m), it was still relatively warm and comfortable - probably in the high teens celsius. Certainly good enough for sitting out in T-Shirts, especially when the sun was out.

Beautiful Nock Mountains

Lunch along the Nockalmstrasse

Nockalmstrasse Pullout

This was the first time that we'd really had a chance to take a truly scenic picture with our two prides and joy. They really did look like proper siblings, clearly borne of the same parents.

After taking a plethora of pictures and video, we finally decided to head on. We still had some distance to cover, and a spot or two to visit along the way.

Boxster at Lookout

A bit of Crew Instruction

Perfect Curve

Against the Nock Mountains

Lookout over domes

Quick Stop at Porsche's Birthplace

We continued our traverse along the Nockalmstrasse, reaching its northern terminus at the town of Innerkrems. From here we descended west, down an upper valley which merged with the valley of the Lieser river. Following this valley downhill brought us to the town of Gmünd. For those of you not well-versed in the history of Porsche, Gmünd is a notable place.

To Gmund

During the middle of the second world war, Porsche decided to move their engineering facilities away from the prospect of destruction via bombing. They chose this little town in Carinthia - Gmünd - situated in a forested valley in Austria's central eastern alps. Although rather primitive and rural, it was far away from any war activities.

In 1948 this was the location where Ferdinand and Ferry Porsche first constructed and certified what the company considers their first real car: the 356. The very first version - really a one-off prototype - known as the 356 "Number 1", or 356.001, was built and received an operating license. This is the point in time that Porsche uses for its anniversary years, and hence, why this year - 2023 - was considered Porsche's 75th anniversary year. The 911 and the 718 models were both clearly ancestrally-derived from this initial mid-engined sports coupe, and so coming through town and driving by the historic works buildings was a symbolic thing we wished to do.

Porsche Museum Gmund

We floundered around for a bit, having a hard time finding the buildings and location where the engineering works and factory had been located, and eventually located the historic museum. We were running a bit late, however, and decided to simply do a slow drive-by rather than stop and head inside. We certainly turned a few heads and had cameras snapping as we slowly cruised by in two Carmine-Red mid-engine Porsches.

Luke's Thoughts

[near the historic Porsche museum in Gmünd...]

A couple of guys ask for a photo standing next to our cars. One cheerful fellow puts his hand on Andrew's mirror for the photo, kinda like an "I am touching this gorgeous Porsche" moment. Nice, but a bit presumptuous I think.

Our planned itinerary had us arriving at a point - any point, really - in Italy by the end of the day. This was eminently achievable, because Gmünd is only located about seventy kilometres east of the Italian border. We drove out of town, headed west and were soon climbing up regional highway V110 towards the Plöckenpass.

Into Italy

The Plöckenpass (Passo di Monte Croce Carnico in Italian) is a relatively low pass, at 4452ft/1357m, and doesn't reach high enough to truly be in the alpine. We stopped to take some border-crossing pictures and to set up some additional cameras, realizing that we had not done a lot with our GoPros since the start of our road journey. We set up the two that we had on both the inside and outside of our vehicles.

On into Italy

Switching up the cams

Cockpit viewpoint ready

With our cameras reconfigured and recording, we headed down the Italian side of the pass, now on Strada Statale 52. This was much twistier than the Austrian side, with plenty of well-paved very tight hairpins. In some locations the width was a little narrow, and there was even a time where a narrow hairpin in a tunnel caused an uncomfortable squeeze for a camper-van ahead of us. We had to stop and let it actually back partway up the road to let the other vehicle pass. Why oh why do people bring big vehicles up these roads that are not made for them!?

The fun road down was marred by the excessive traffic. Often we would slow down and toodle along in first at 20 km/hr just so that a bit of a gap could be opened up with the line of traffic ahead of us (and no, there was no one behind us when we did this). As we had suspected, a summertime weekend day on the main passes of the Alps is a complete killer to any sort of driving fun.

Tunnels and Hairpins

The SS52 led down into a deep valley in the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia. We were very close now to the edge of the Dolomite mountain range.

The switchbacks finished, and with the valley widening and flattening out, the road became a regular (but very scenic) highway, devoid of anything super curvy that would cause the tourist traffic to slow down. Our speed therefore increased, and presently we arrived at the fairly sizeable town of Paluzza, situated at a side spot in the valley with two side-valleys coming in from the east and west.

Our aim was to head west, into the Dolomites themselves, taking the most logical "good twisty" we could find, and ending up at some sort rustic accommodation. We stopped at a picnic pullout so I could do some online accommodation lookup. The afternoon was drawing on and we needed to start looking for a place to stay. In my mind, I wanted to find an Italian rifugio, high up somewhere in the alpine, yet along a paved road - preferably a "fun" paved road.

Search, search, search. Lots of regular type accommodations popped up - rooms in little towns in the valleys, suites in large ski resort buildings. Nope, nope. Cross-referencing to my good-roads database, I traced along the tagged good roads just to the west of us, looking for rifugios or alpine hotels somewhere along them.

Eventually I located one in just the right location: the Rifugio Ten Fabbro, located along a high section of remote mountain route - a route that was on my "good roads" list, which meant I had marked it for having excellent twisties. The highway leading west from where we were would directly hook up with this route. A quick call to the rifugio's phone number and ... yes - they had room. I quickly made a booking for the three of us, and we were set for the evening. Now, to get there before dinnertime....

Luke's Thoughts

[on securing our rifugio for the night...]

Once again Andrew works his magic and finds us a place to stay. Have to say this is a very nice feature, having someone as experienced as him to sort out accommodations. I'm feeling rather spoiled.

A side note about European mountain huts (of which the Italian Rifugios are a type), if you haven't read one of my trip reports before: typically they have a very specific fixed dinnertime and breakfast time - usually from about 6 to 8pm in the evening and 7-9am in the morning.

We had about 60 kilometres yet to go, over some mountain passes and twisty roads. All good, but for a couple of snags: Snag #1: it was now 6:30pm, and if we didn't hoof it, we were going to be too late for dinner. Snag #2: we were down to about just over 100km of range in our fuel tanks. Yeesh ... that'd be cutting it close, no?

I felt we could do it. I felt we could make it up to the pass with enough gas to spare, such that the next morning, the downward drive into the next valley - probably another 25km or so - would be easily achievable with whatever fuel we had left. Luke seemed a bit dubious, but agreed to the plan. Onwards to Rifugio Fabbro.

We continued westwards, making best possible time as we drove up and over a low pass on the SS465 (a very nice highway with some decent curves, by the way) and down into the Degano valley. At the Degano River itself the SS465 makes a hard left, and we begin our ascent of the Pesarine Valley.

Pesarine Dolomites

The highway led up along the bottom of this valley, passing through some very picturesque towns, including the village of Pesariis, known also as the "village of clocks". There's a tradition of clock-making here, and along with that historic industry, the town has gone full out with putting various clocks and clock art on all sorts of buildings. You can read more about this place here: Pesariis, the town of clocks. Unfortunately, with our (ha-ha) eye on the clock, we couldn't afford to stop and tour this town. Straight through we drove.

Beyond Pesariis, the highway became more remote, the little hamlets fewer. Soon they fell away entirely and the road started to climb more steeply, with few tight switchbacks here and there. This was getting good ... and for once, the road was pretty deserted. We had it to ourselves and we could push the cars a little harder.

Not too hard, though, because as we ascended, our gas gauge's remaining fuel estimation continued to decrease: 80km to empty ... 70km to empty ... 60km ...

Luke's Thoughts

[on stretching the tank...]

With fuel getting low, I find myself becoming increasingly agitated by the warning message on the dash. There's no gas stations around here and I really don't look forward to the thought of running the cars dry and having to get a tow. Andrew is calm and sanguine about it over the radio - I wish I had his ability to block out the catastrophic thoughts.

(to read more of Luke's thoughts from this day, check out his blog post)

Luke's voice crackled over the radio, inquiring about how much farther it was. There was clearly worry in it now, as the prospect of running the tanks bone dry edged closer. Looking at the distance remaining, I still felt we could safely make it, although I had to admit it was a little alarming to see the "to-empty" distance inch towards 50km remaining. The center Infotainment screen soon popped up a message: "You are running low on fuel. Search for a gas station?". Pffft, yeah right. No gas stations up here, my dear Cayman!

The Enchanting Dolomites

The highway's steep, twisty ascent soon ended, and we began a gentle, undulating traverse semi-alpine terrain. We couldn't see too much owing to fairly thick clouds, but a couple of openings in the murk gave us a spectacular glimpse of the Carnic / Pesarine Mountains.

My GPS showed that we were only a few kilometres from the rifugio, and sure enough, after a few more gentle curves, the red-roof structure of the rifugio came into view. It was a decently-sized place, situated on the side of the road. A subalpine meadow stretched uphill on the opposite side of the road. Behind the rifugio was a bit more meadow before thick forest started.

We parked in the generous parking area alongside the road near the rifugio, well away from other cars. We had made it with just under 50 km "to go" before empty. And the time? 7:25pm. More than enough time to get inside and order our dinner before kitchen-closing time.

Rifugio Ten Fabbro

Rif. Rifugio Ten Fabbro

Resting for the evening

We made our way inside, up to the front desk, and in my not-bad Italian, introduced ourselves. We stated our intent for dinner, then got directed up to our accommodation. Happily, in this particular rifugio, we managed to snag a quaint 4-person private room to ourselves. We quickly plugged in some devices to charge, and went back down to the large communal dining area and scanned through the menu.

Excellent Mountain Meal

Like most of the mountain hut-type places in the alps, this rifugio had a menu that was loosely based on the local food of the area. And for this area, that meant options like spaghetti with meat sauce, gnocchi, roasted potatoes, and of course the ever-present polenta. We ordered some appetizers and side dishes along with our main courses, and a bottle of sparkling mineral water. And a bit of house red, too. Very civilized.

Shortly before the 8pm kitchen closing time, our food came out to us, hot and fresh. We reflected on today - the first truly "good roads" day of our trip. It had been quite a whirlwind, and we had gotten to know quite a bit more about the character of our cars over the course of the day. With all of the traffic of a Sunny Summer Sunday, the experiences hadn't been focused on heart-stopping performance, but more on tractability, driveability, and comfort. And in those respects, the Cayman and the Boxster had excelled: supple suspension with very good NVH characteristics, comfortable seats, good ergonomics, and an overall solidity that felt ... both natural and special at the same time.

We retired for the night, looking forward to more excellent roads tomorrow.

Interactive trackmap with photo points - July 23 - click map to view

Interactive trackmap with photo points - July 23 - click to view

July 23 - Drive Data

Start Time: 10:08a.m.

End Time: 7:24p.m.

Duration: 9h16m

Distance: 254.86 km (158.36 mi)

Average Speed: 27.5 km/hr (17.1 mph)

Start Elevation: 2858ft (871m) *

Max Elevation: 6733ft (2052m) *

Min Elevation: 1758ft (536m) *

End Elevation: 5704ft (1739m) *