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

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Sunday, July 30, 2023 - The Maritime Alps

The Italian Riviera, Chef's Kiss Twisties, abandoned NATO base and Mid-Engine Sportscar Rock-crawling

Luke's Thoughts

[on breakfast at the Rif. Pratorondo...]

We grab early breakfast at seven, and then have a little downtime waiting for Andrew as he works on his Instagram post. He feels the pressure of creating content up to the level that he has been. It's tough, balancing capturing the experience, reporting on it, etc. I remember when we first talked about posting to Instagram during the trip we thought maybe two or three posts would be it, but Andrew has really gotten into it. Although he enjoys it, I think he also feels a duty to it, and his quest for quality certainly has him working hard! I'm not stressed though, as he is doing great service to the trip, to me, and to people following along.

There was nothing much to report from our overnight at the Rifugio Pratorondo. We had a solid sleep and in the morning, availed ourselves of a fairly basic continental breakfast in the rifugio's main dining area. I spent a bit of time processing and compiling our footage for the last few days in the Apennines, with an intent of publishing a short @gtschronicles Instagram point. We then settled up our bill and headed out to the cars.

As departures go, I would rate today somewhere in the middle; we were packed and sat in the "sports seat plus" buckets of our two 718 GTS 4.0s shortly after 10 a.m. Although the ground-level cloud from yesterday evening had lifted, the air was pretty hazy, and we didn't have any super amazing views. We could now see, however, that the land to the south of the rifugio, on the slope of the mountain facing the mediterranean coastline, was grassy open meadow. On a nice day, that would likely be an amazing view. Just not today.

Preppin' for the road

We drove west from the rifugio, continuing on the crumbly paved track of the SP57. We drove over the highpoint area that we had visited in last night's pea-soup cloud, through a cluster of buildings and comms towers strategically-placed here. Then the road followed the now-descending crest of Monte Beigua, passing through some pleasant upper altitude parkland and some nice picnic areas that would be great places to stop mid-day to have a bite to eat.

The road became better-paved and nicely twisty in spots as it descended more definitively towards the coastline. We began to pass through areas of built-up habitation, then small towns, which then morphed into a generally continuous light urban corridor as we got closer and closer to the water, finally entering full-on cityscape at the coastal community of Varazze. The smell of salt air and the presence of palm trees signified our arrival on the Italian Riviera!

The Rivieria

Seeing as this was new terrain for The GTS Chronicles on this road trip (this was our first bit of sea-side driving), we spent a bit of time toodling up and down the main road linking the towns along this section of the Riviera, getting some photos and video - although really, it was more like one continuous stretch of urban development - there wasn't much in the way of gaps between municipalities.

We then parked in a hospital parking lot in the city of Savona to do a little map reconnaissance for the afternoon's driving. While doing that, a fellow Porschephile in a silver Porsche 928 pulled up. He was with his (presumably) son, and were probably out for a "3S" (Sunny Summer Sunday) drive when they spotted the two very distinctive Carmine Red 718 GTS 4.0s of The GTS Chronicles. He pulled up beside us and we exchanged a few words of mutual admiration. And then, with a roar from his 928's big V8, he launched away.

Italian Riveria

Cruising the Riviera

Attracting a little Porsche Love

Finished with my road-planning, we headed off. Instead of returning to the municipal coastal road, we headed to the entrance of the E-80 Autostrada. which ran parallel to the coast but provided a high-speed bypass around all of the coastal cities.

After a quick fuel stop, we drove southwest on the Autostrada for a few tens of minutes, before exiting at a town called Feglino. I had identified a route that started here and led up into the Maritime Alps (aka the Ligurian Alps) here, connecting a number of good-looking roads and some interesting attractions.

The first part of our chosen route was to follow a narrow back highway (the SP23) up a ridgeline into high country. There were a few lookouts here and there along this climbing ridgecrest, but mostly we were still in vegetation. There was a decent amount of traffic - including cyclists - on the road today. Not surprising, because after all, it was an S-S-S day....

The Abandoned NATO Base

I had identified a very curious attraction while doing my good road database research. At the height of land not far above us was the remnants of a Nato Communications Base, constructed during the 1960s. The base was abandoned in the early 1990s and now was a sort of industrial relic in the mountains. I had done some more digging and found some descriptions and pictures. I found the place held an odd kind of attraction. I thought it would be cool to have lunch there, and might make for some neat pictures of our two Porsches against the rusting relics of the Cold War.

The highway we were on diverged from the crest of the ridgeline we were on, starting a traverse westward. Shortly thereafter a small one-lane paved side-road led off uphill towards the hilltop where the base was located.

The narrow one-lane road headed straight up, towards the base, which was now only a few hundred metres away. We passed several active wind turbines along the way.

Blocked at the entrance

Google maps street view had shown that the entranceway into the base was paved and open. However, we discovered that just a few short metres from that gate, there were now a couple of huge concrete blocks across the roadway, rendering passage impossible to 4-wheeled vehicles (but still possible for bikes and motorbikes). This was a bit of a downer, because it meant that we would not have an opportunity for cool new-car shots against old graffiti-ed buildings, and also because it meant we had to park the cars in a kind of awkward, exposed location. But we were here now, so we were going to visit at least a little bit - and to have our intended picnic lunch.

Luke's Thoughts

[on visiting the ex-NATO base...]

As we head up a particularly tight single-lane road, we discover that it's mountain biking Mecca, extremely narrow and rough. Can't say I'm enjoying it one little bit. Occasionally some plants rub against the side of the car and I fear for scratches remembering what happened to our Jeeps way back when we were canyoneering in the Escalante.

Andrew has another surprise in store for me though, and as the road ends and we park (after I check closely for scratches - phew, none!), he reveals that we are now at an old NATO communication station. It's covered in graffiti and has a really strange vibe to it. But it's really cool.

So we did just that, breaking out our cookies and panini bread and cheese and making a bit of lunch, right there on the big concrete blocks. Once finished, we wandered up to the old decaying buildings of the base to have a look around. Most of the shells of the buildings were still intact. The insides of the buildings, though, seemed to have been cleaned out of equipment, interior walls, and fixtures. Just mostly big open spaces. Virtually all walls, both inside and out, were covered in graffiti. But to just call it graffiti would be a disservice: there was some seriously good artwork here, rather than just standard graffiti text-tagging. It's really too bad we couldn't have brought the Cayman and the Boxster up here to the courtyard of the base. It would have made for some seriously cool shots with this artwork as background.

Ex-NATO base

Fanciful Graffiti

Ruined Room

Fanciful Graffiti

The old base is essentially right at the top of the mountain. And because the normally-wooded terrain was cleared away for the base's buildings, there were clear lines of sight in all directions - including south to the sea. Normally it would have been a pretty cool view, but today the haze in the air was thick, and we could only just barely make out that there was a sea down there.

Hazy Sea

Our walking tour of the ex-NATO base was short. We needed to move on and we weren't particularly comfortable with the precarious parking situation back at the gate, where cyclists and pedestrians had to squeeze by our cars to reach the base and the walking trails that led across the summit here. We carefully drove back down the single-lane driveway back to the SP23, then turned right and continued our traverse across the Melogno Massif.

Cool Road-fort

We did not know, but soon came to discover, that this area has an additional bit of defensive military history. Our first indication of this came only a few minutes later, when we came across a high stone wall on the right side of the road, and then another high bricked wall directly in our path. The highway, however, did not stop. Instead it narrowed to one lane and tunnelled directly into the wall. Entering the tunnel revealed that we weren't underground but rather in some sort of old historic building, and in moments we came out the other side and the highway re-widened and continued on.

Intrigued as to what this was, we stopped at a nearby pullout and got out to examine things more closely. As it turned out, this was the Forte Centrale del Melogno - a fort built in the late 1800s. It was in fact was one of a series of similar forts in this area, meant to defend the interior from coastal attacks. As a result, they were built on crest lines of mountain (just like this one was).

Now on the northern side of the crest of the Ligurian Alps, we descended quickly to the valley town of Celizzano, and immediately crossed through it, continuing west up to the next mountain pass.

The Colle del Quazzo: A Most Excellent Twisty

Along this next stretch - up to that pass - the Colle del Quazzo, was a stretch of highway that I had had my eye on for quite a few years. I had come across it early during my long compilation of my European "great roads" database - back when I was compiling in advance of the BMW M2 trip, and it had caught my attention for a number of reasons. Rather than regurgitate, I'll quote directly from my database entry on this road:

SP213 Colle del Quazzo
Beautifully paved quiet excellently twisty forested backway pass. Exceptionally nicely landscaped, spacious, grassy verges. Even though forest, often quite good sight lines. Street-view from 2011. Speed limit 90km/hr. Really nice stuff.

Needless to say, when I had done my route planning earlier in the morning, and had seen that we were near this bit of road, well ... I knew we had to sample it. And here we were now, about to sample it.

It was only a short few minutes up the SP47 westbound from Calizzano before we reached the start of the "good stuff". We were at the boundary between the regions of Liguria and Piedmont (crossing into Piedmont), and there was a large overhead sign proclaiming "Provincia di Cuneo". The highway switched from the SP47 to the SP213 at this boundary.

This boundary point is exactly where the "good stuff" began. The road was already up to this point wide and nicely-paved, with few blemishes or cracks. But now it also started to head more steeply uphill to the Quazzo pass, and it started heading in and out of every little corrugation of the hillside - all the while maintaining a wide width.

The verges along the side of the road [up to this point] were in very good shape - well-kept, low-trimmed greenery and little to no gravel. As we climbed, however, the maintenance on the shoulders became even more fastidiously maintained ... In fact, I'd have to use the word "gardened". The sides of the road had a few metres of well-tended lawn, basically, even when the terrain was steep, the cut-in and the built-out sides of the roads were carefully manicured and mowed.

Ooo- nice curves!

Beautiful Hairpins

In the middle part of the ascent, the road performed a number of beautifully-executed tight switchbacks, with large expanses of manicured grass on either side and no nasty curbs or gravel. Little landscaped drainage ditches channeled water flow where necessary. And then, at the top, near where the road crested at Colle del Quazzo, the road completed the ascent with a flourish of very tight back and forth esses. The clean wide verge areas meant you could see a lot further ahead and around you than would normally be the case on a twisty forested mountain road.

And then we arrived at the height of land, at the Colle del Quazzo, and pulled off to debrief ourselves. Wow, what a bit of road. Chef's Kiss.

Starting the "esses"

Boxster GTS at the Colle

Debrief

There was really no question: we must sample this road a few more times, and also capture some photos and footage. This was definitely going to be one of the great road segments of our trip.

I spent some time doing a little camera coaching with Crewmember Brian over the course of these runs. It was worth positioning him up on the grassy verges or banks and getting clips of us pushing hard in the tight bits.

Winding the Flat-six Out

Luke's Thoughts

[on the amazing Colle del Quazzo...]

Next it's time for some proper filming, with cameras mounted on both cars, along with Andrew says it's going to be an excellent piece of road. I can tell he's particularly looking forward to this, and his single-minded directorial vision that produces good stuff is in full force. I'm ready, my stuff is ready, and I'm pleased to be instantly actionable as he desires.

Sure enough, we hit an incredible stretch of road, one that is worth driving up and down several times. More than just switchbacks, this is esses, an off-camber hairpin, several banked turns, and all within an amazingly smooth road surface. Wow!

We spent the next our or so doing runs down to the regional border sign, and then back up to the pass. Sometimes I'd follow Luke. Sometimes he'd follow me. Our two 718 GTS 4.0s drank up this road. I could hear Luke's Boxster's Four-litre growling and revving mixed in with that of my Cayman. A dual flat-six symphony. The tires were nicely warmed up and the pavement was like glue. Or the tires were like glue. Whatever. Grip seemed limitless. I could barely detect the slightest hint of oversteer powering out of corners, and virtually no understeer. And It was so gratifying to power up through the gears (the road's curves were such that using gears 1, 2 and 3 made sense - even with the rather tall second gear ratio). Very rarely did we get above the generous 90 km/hr limit, such was the level of twistiness. You perhaps would get up to 95 km/hr at most before having to brake hard for the next complex curve. It was funny to think that mostly we were driving *under* the speed limit, even though we were pushing two purpose built sports cars pretty hard.

I set up my R6 Mark II using the 3D printed mount that I had brought, and it acquitted itself quite well in these hard runs.

Here and There and Everywhere

A super-twisty

Boxster GTS at the Colle

By 6pm, we had wrapped up our filming/driving session at the Colle del Quazzo. Evening was well on its way, and we had better be on our way also, lest we arrive at our nighttime destination too late.

Speaking of that destination: I had booked spots for the three of us at another rifugio I had identified on the map - a place called the Rifugio Pian dell'Arma. It was another of a string of rifugios high in the Maritime / Ligurian Alps, a bit further to the west from where we were. I had looked at all of the facilities and the approach route, and it seemed good - although there was about 300 metres of what appeared to be straightforward gravelled road. Our two Porsches could take a couple of hundred metres of gravel road, no?

Colle del Quazzo

We continued west from the Colle del Quazzo. The highway west of the pass was of similar excellent quality to the eastern side, save for it was a little less intense in terms of the curves. But it had all of the other excellent qualities with respect to pavement and meticulous landscaping of the verges. Overall, I don't think I've seen another stretch of highway quite like the highway over the Colle del Quazzo.

Descending to Garassio

The SP213 brought us in this very enjoyable manner down to the valley town of Garassio, on the outskirts, in a little companion hillside community, we stopped at a very large church - the Santuario di Valsorda. It was perhaps not large in the context of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, but here in this little side-hamlet, it was huge. And impressive.

Santuario di Valsorda

A Rock-Crawl to Our Rifugio

From Garassio, it was not far to our Rifugio. A fast drive up the arterial valley route of the SS28, and then a short drive up a nice bit of mountain road brought us to a the turnoff to the Rifugio Pian dell'Arma. And, as expected, it was a narrow gravel track. It seemed benign enough, and we started up it, keeping the speed low so as to not generate dust. After all, it was only a couple of hundred metres, right?

Well, in a word - wrong. What I did not realize - could not have really seen on a satellite map or description - was that this little gravel track had dips along its length. That is to say, it had these shallow trenches cut across it every so often. Probably for drainage. For a regular passenger vehicle, they were no big deal, and so therefore not really worth of note in any description of this rifugio. But they were of sufficient depth that, within a moment of seeing the very first one, I knew it was going to be trouble for our cars, with their lower ground clearance. Dang it! So close to our rifugio we were, only a few hundred yards away, and yet here we were, stuck. I stopped the Cayman and got out to have a closer look.

An innocuous entrance

Fortunately, all was not lost. After surveying the lay of the roadbed up close, I could see that there was really only one spot, right at the concavity at the bottom of the shallow gully, where the front lip of the cars would likely contact the ground. And if I could just get the nose of the car up for maybe two or three feet, we could get past that without scraping. I had done this sort of thing - on a much larger scale - when doing 4x4 rock crawling with Jeeps in the American Desert Southwest - and I was pretty sure we could do a much more modest variant of the same here.

I consulted with Luke, who perhaps exhibited a bit of anxiety about bringing his very expensive sportscar up a backcountry dirt track, but he was ok to proceed. Next, I needed to make sure that there weren't any more serious absolute no-go obstacles farther up. So I ran up the rest of the way to the rifugio, seeing what the gravel track was like for the entire remaining distance.

In a few moments, I returned with good news. There were a couple more of these shallow dips, but all looked passable given a little bit of clever rock-work. And the rifugio was indeed not far away.

Drive this way

And so, the grand GTS Chronicles Rock-Crawling adventure began. I parked the Cayman off to the side and ran up the road to the first gully, scanning the side of the road for inch-thick flat stones, and picking them up when I found them. Fortunately, the bedrock in this area seemed conducive to breaking down into the right kind of chunks, and soon I had a nice collection. I positioned them in a nice little line, forming a two-foot long rock bridge just beyond the bottom part of the deepest side of the gully, where I estimated the Boxster needed that little extra to lift the nose. I then turned back to Luke, who was idling in his Boxster waiting for direction, and I carefully guided him towards me, making sure his passenger side wheel went up onto my little rock bridge.

Can you rock-crawl a 718?

Slowly, slowly, Luke inched the Boxster's passenger front wheel down to, and then onto, the first of my little row of rocks. By doing so, I could see the nose lift a corresponding inch or two off of the ground, which was now starting to angle up out of the gully.

Slowly he inched forward under my direction. Then, ... "STOP", as he teetered on a slightly higher rock towards the end of my bridge. I didn't want him to drive off the end of the bridge, because then that would bring the nose back down and would smack it into the ground. By stopping him, I was able to get down and take some of the rocks at the back end of the bridge and reposition them in front.

In this manner, we slowly inched Luke's car past the low point of the gully, without any grazing or scraping (even with -20mm SPASM, forum folks!). It was a little tedious and time-consuming, but, eh ... watcha gonna do when there are no better options? you just ... get. the. job. done!

Arrival after Challenge

After getting Luke's Boxster past the first obstacle, we did the same with the Cayman. Then I ran up ahead and prepared the necessary rock bridging for the next gully. And rinse. And repeat. And by 7:35pm, we finally pulled into the parking lot of the Rifugio Pian dell'Arma. It had taken us about half an hour to drive about three hundred and fifty yards (metres). A challenge, but we had made it. Who would have thought that a couple of brand-new Porsche mid-engine sports cars would be driving up a primitive gravel road to a mountain hut? I'm sure we looked out of place. Luke described the experience as "a tad unpleasant" but seemed otherwise untraumatized.

Luke's Thoughts

[on 4x4-ing with his Boxster GTS...]

I am full of trepidation as we slowly navigate our way along this new challenge. Andrew is calm and collected about it, and usefully goes first, trailblazing and figuring out the best lines to take.

The car is so stiff that it lifts front or rear wheels off the ground at times, keeping it flat. There is some delicate balancing of throttle and clutch, as we have to be really careful not to scrape our 'chins'. At some point we build some little pebble bridges that allow us to creep over the rain gullies,

At one point, I think / hope that the car is getting a bit confused by the heat, action of the car, angles … I don't know, but I get a warning light on the dash. A bit of googling seems to indicate something related to oxygen sensors, which I know from past experience can be flaky in adverse conditions. It goes off after restarting the car, and hasn't yet returned. It did indicate 'driving permitted' so we shall see. A little unnerving.

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

We checked ourselves into the rifugio. It was a lovely place, seemingly of fairly recent construction and of a stylish modern aesthetic. The situation was very beautiful. Looking southeast, a large panorama of coastal mountains lay before us, with the mediterranean sea beyond. Behind and above us was an impressive cliff band, which hid further mountain heights beyond. Closer by, the rifugio was surrounded by a pleasant lawn dotted with trees and benches and picnic tables. And beside that, the rifugio had its own vegetable garden.

Excellent Food

We sat down at an empty table in the Rifugio's dining area at around 8pm. A quick look at the menu showed that it was more extensive than typical rifugio fare. More courses. More divergence from the standard "meat and potatoes" (Italian version thereof, I mean). There seemed also to be an emphasis on home-grown and home-made.

I don't remember everything we ordered but Luke and I had a Pork and roasted potatoes dish in a savory sauce (possibly turnip-based?) that was excellent. And the dessert was excellent too, and I think they had baked it in house. I really must learn to take better pictures of menus and food on these trips, because it is a bit of a bummer that I can't recall everything that I had here. It was _very_ good, and a cut or two above what you get at most Italian Rifugios (which, to be fair, are themselves quite decent. This was just that much better!)

Rifugio Pian dell'Arma

After dinner, I decided to take another tour outside. The warm evening had grown dark, but not fully dark, and the rifugio stood out as a dim shape with glowing windows. The landscape was dark, dark blue in the gathering dark, and I could see the twinkle of lights in the valleys down towards the sea, which I could not see, due to a layer of undercast that had formed. We were, as I always prefer, now above the clouds.

What a peaceful spot. It had been worth the rock-crawling effort to get up here.

And so concluded day ten of The GTS Chronicles Euro Delivery Roadtrip. I tell ya ... every day was bringing new challenges and interesting experiences!

Interactive trackmap with photo points - July 30 - click map to view

Interactive trackmap with photo points - July 30 - click to view

July 30 - Drive Data

Start Time: 10:07a.m.

End Time: 9:27p.m.

Duration: 11h19m

Distance: 125.45 km (77.95 mi)

Average Speed: 11.1 km/hr (6.9 mph)

Start Elevation: 3514ft (1071m) *

Max Elevation: 4477ft (1365m) *

Min Elevation: 14ft (4m) *

End Elevation: 4410ft (1344m) *