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

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Monday, July 31, 2023 - French Connection

Arrivederci Italia, Bonjour France, and Pascale's Amazing Chapel-Farm

A quiet Monday morning greeted us on the last day of July. The only interruption to our sleep the night before was a late night arrival to the rifugio. The staff had directed this single individual - (I think he must have been a hiker from the look of his kit) into our dorm room after we had gone to sleep. Now, I'll point out that this sort of shared sleeping arrangement hadn't happened so far on our trip. At all of our other rifugio stays, we had been given (or had requested and been given) a separate private room. Here at this rifugio, we'd had to settle for a shared dorm room.

But no matter, all good. I went out before breakfast, out into the early morning calm. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and there was not a breath of wind. The shadowy shapes of mountains marched downwards towards the coastline of the Mediterranean, and then stopped at a different kind of sea ... a sea of white clouds that was covering the coastline and the water beyond. But up here at 4200ft / 1300m, it was all clear.

Rifugio Pian dell'Arma

To the sea

La Rocca dell'Arma

Turning around, the view upwards was dominated by a long impressive cliff band - the Rocca dell'Arma. Above the cliff band, the land continues to rise, all the way up to the summit of Monte Armetta, altitude 5705ft / 1739m. Monte Armetta is the highest of the mountains in these Ligurian pre-alps. It would have been nice to have more time in our schedule, to take a half-day to do a hike up into the alpine, maybe to the summit, and then resume driving the following day. But as I had now clearly learned, a trip as ambitious as ours cannot be done in three and a half weeks unless extraneous activities like day hikes are skipped. Oh, how I would love to reprise a trip like this but with double the time. "The Alps in Six Weeks with my Flat-Six". That would make for an excellent title for such a trip.

Crossroads

The Rifugio Pian Dell'Arma

One of the young staff working at the Rifugio took notice of me as I was wandering around, taking photos of the rifugio, our Porsches in the parking lot, of the scenery, and of the building itself. We struck up a small conversation. He was a university student, working at the rifugio for the summer. Our two Carmine Red 718 sportscars were definitely out of the ordinary at a place like this, and had stirred his curiosity. He wondered if perhaps we were on some sort of press outing for Porsche.

I told him about The GTS Chronicles and about our European Delivery Experience, and shared with him our Instagram channel and one of our GTS Chronicles business cards. The exchange reminded me of how cool it would have been to have done a bit of collaboration with Porsche on telling the story of our trip. I'm guessing the experts in their media department would have helped me avoid many of the rookie mistakes we had made (and surely were currently making). But, such was life. We were still immensely enjoying our trip, and despite the many opportunities passing us by, including missed photo or video opportunities, bungled settings, or poor framing ... we were still capturing a whole lot of the trip's basic goodness.

Elegant Construction

Has there ever been?

Culinary Pride

I went back inside and joined up with Luke and crewmember Brian for breakfast. Just like the dinner before, it was clear that the rifugio was a cut above when it came to the culinary experience. The breakfast was still a continental one, like most other rifugios, but the options available to us again were of superior grade: homemade jams, scones, tarts, local honey, all arranged neatly at a common table for all rifugio guests to sample. And re-sample. Hats off to the proprietors.

After our most enjoyable breakfast, it was time to head off. We were nearly finished with the Italian leg of our journey, and today we intended to cross the frontier into France, where we would spend a few days exploring the high alps there.

But first, we had to re-run the gauntlet from the rifugio down to the highway. And by the gauntlet, I mean the series of uneven gullies in the rifugio approach road that had proven challenging for our low-slung sports cars.

Unlike yesterday, however, there was little uncertainty. We knew that if we simply repeated our little rock-bridge process in the necessary spots, we would make it down without molesting the tidy front splitter on our cars. Patience and a little time, and we would be fine.

Careful positioning

A Stiff Chassis

And so it was. More relaxed and comfortable with the idea of rock-crawling the cars, we sure-footedly made our way back town to the Strada Provinciale 216.

Luke's Thoughts

[on the rock-crawl out...]

Obviously, the car is a bit confused by what we are doing as when balanced on two wheels at one point, the electric 'parking brake in service mode' light comes on. Gotta say it irks me a little bit that I'm the one experiencing these little warning messages, the maintenance reminder, the windshield chip, the front lip scrape. I mean come on!!

A few days later I cobbled together a fun little piece of content for our @gtschronicles Instagram page, about our rock-crawlin' adventure to the Rifugio Pian dell'Arma. You can view the post on instagram here, or inline (in wide format) in this page below:

The GTS Chronicles IG Post 088 - "Who Needs a Dakar?"

And with the off-road adventuring complete, we turned west on the SP216, headed towards France. The road-trippin' part of our day had begun.

Eastward towards France

I had been reviewing the "good roads" I had catalogued in this part of extreme Western Italy, and there was one in particular that had intrigued me - it was what looked like a rarely-travelled backway to a dramatic pass - and with, of course, lots of twists and turns. My notes on this road in my database was as follows:

SP17 / Passo Teglia
super remote, very twisty. Very narrow over the top and near the top. Some rather exciting narrow traversing sections on steep open terrain. Pavement is so-so, also a bit rough in a few spots. Some good interesting scenery though. Street-View: 2021. Speed limit over the top is only 30 but in all honesty I don't think you'd want to go too much faster than 30 or 40 in any location up near the top.

So, as you can see, it certainly sounded interesting. And it was more or less "on the way" for us.

The drive down westward from the rifugio duplicated a bit of road we took on the way in last night, but fortunately it was fun stuff, so we were happy to do it again. We then continued westward and southward, crossing the watershed divide at the crest of the Ligurian pre-alps and entering the land of the drainages going south towards the coast. We followed the main highway down the Arroscia Valley to a point between the towns of Pieve di Teco and Muzio.

From here, we turned off west onto the SP18, on the first leg of our climb up to this mysterious-sounding Passo Teglia. After reaching a small mountain valley of Rezzo, the highway designation changed, switching from SP18 to SP17. And with the change, the road became narrower, and the pavement older, and a little more unkempt and remote.

Narrow and Overgrown

The sense of remoteness and unkemptness gradually increased as we climbed higher into the valley above, traversing in and out along the right-hand slopes. The road was quite narrow in spots, often only a single lane. The pavement would occasionally crumble down into a short one or two car-lengths of gravel, before returning to pavement. The vegetation seemed to crowd in on us - bushes and branches often overhung the the road surface, meaning we had to be careful in these spots to stay right in the center, lest we risk getting the cars scratched.

Narrow and Overgrown

The SP17 was definitely twisty, but given the narrowness and the poor sight lines, we weren't going very fast. Any sharp curve ahead required a beep of the horn to warn any prospective oncomers. And in many locations, if there had been an oncomer, someone would be having to do some reversing. Fortunately, there was virtually no traffic.

The state of the road did induce a bit of anxiety as to whether or not it would get worse. If for whatever reason the highway devolved into a gravel backcountry track, for example, then we'd likely have to give up and retrace our steps. I mentally crossed my fingers that it would get no worse than it was at the moment.

A quaint little fountain appeared ahead on the left, with enough of a pullout for us to safely leave space for traffic. We stopped and enjoyed a refreshing little break here.

Backcountry fountain

Drink Break

Refreshed, we slowly continued up the SP17. The overall "grunge factor" of the highway remained unchanged - narrow, a bit crumbly, overgrown - but not get worse. As we neared the crest of the ridgeline, and the Passo Teglia, we encountered some forestry workers doing some logging on the upper slopes, big trucks and log-picking machinery and such. They looked at us a bit funny. No doubt the sense was "what the #@$ are you guys doing up here with those cars??"

But up here we were, and the Passo Teglia awaited, just ahead.

The road crested the highpoint - which I suppose technically was the Passo Teglia - a few minutes later. The crest itself was still in thick forest, but as the road swung around and started to descend, the world opened. Suddenly the trees ended, revealing a huge expanse of landscape to the west. Where the eastern slopes of the ridgeline had been thick forest, the western slopes were almost completely without trees. The road began to descend, diagonally, across these steep open slopes. To our left, the land climbed steeply to the ridgecrest, and to the right, it dropped away even more steeply.

Passo Teglia

We arrived at a large hairpin. Due to the steepness of the slope, the roadbuilders had had to build out the highway in order to achieve a round curve of decent radius. This meant that the roadway had been built quite far out from this steep slope, buttressed and supported by a very high stone-faced retaining wall. The effect was of a rather airy and exposed balcony. It was very dramatic.

Fortunately, the hairpin also meant that the roadbuilders here had increased the width of the pavement, giving us sufficient space to park without impeding traffic. This was definitely a place we needed to stop and soak in.

Passo Teglia

A cool alpine breeze washed over us as we exited the cars, and stood on the edge of the high retaining wall. This was a pretty dang high wall, and even though we had a sturdy bit of metal armco guarding the edge, it felt exposed. Compounding matters was the fact that the ground at the base of the retaining wall was far from flat - even though it was grassy, it plunged downwards at a very steep angle. If you fell from the top of the retaining wall, there was no telling how far you'd tumble until stopping.

Passo Teglia

Despite the airyness - or more accurately - because of it, this was an amazing spot. An entire swath of the lower Maritime Alps was laid out before us, and we could see, as we drew our eyes northward across the scene, how the altitude and cragginess of the peaks got higher and higher. We knew that off to the distant north, out of sight, were the truly high peaks of the Alps - with snow and glaciers and such.

This spot had a feel unlike any of the twisty mountain routes we had sampled thus far on our trip: it wasn't as dramatic as the mighty crags of the Dolomites, but neither was it as soft and pastoral as the vineyard-draped hills and valleys of the Apennines. And it had a dash of off-the-beaten-track sense of a frontierland; a place at the edge of wilderness. Certainly the complete lack of traffic, visible structures, the thin thread of the road, even the chill in the air - all contributed.

Airy Corner

A remote spot

Across an unspoiled landscape

After spending some time drinking in the scene at the hairpin, including doing a bit of drone flying, we started down the western slopes from the Passo Teglia. The SP17 continued to be super narrow, and basically we were always driving directly in the center of the pavement.

Although the terrain was very steep, the grade of the road was not; instead, it very gently traversed downwards across the slope, heading in and out of shallow gullies. To give you a further sense of remoteness, we encountered a grand total of two other road users on the way down - someone in a Subaru Outback and a lone cyclist.

The road gradually bent back west as we followed the contours of a large basin below the ridgecrest. Eventually we came to open, rocky shoulder where the highway curved around into the next basin. There was a small grouping of rustic stone huts here, not looking like very much at all from the road. I learned later that this was an "agriturismo" - an Italian farm-hostel. The Agriturismo La Fontana dell'Olmo. If you review their website (fontanadellolmo.it), you can see it is quite an intriguing little place. Not for us, though, as the entranceway down to the buildings looked a little too rough for a couple of Porsche sports cars.

Across an unspoiled landscape

A Narrow Ribbon

A narrow backway

From the agriturismo, the road began to assume the more normal characteristics of a provincial highway. It was now wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. The pavement was better. Vegetation was trimmed back. And there were some nice twisties.

Investigating a squeak

Down the road descended, towards the mountain hamlets in the valley below (which, interestingly, was known as the Argentina valley). Luke's Boxster started making a horrible-sounding screeching when he braked for turns, and then at times when he wasn't braking at all. We stopped and looked. It seemed to be coming from the passenger side front wheel, but peer and poke as we might, we could see nothing. We drove a bit more, stopped again, looked. Started again. We started to think about where the nearest Porsche dealership was, and then ... it was gone. Thankfully. Probably a pebble caught between a rotor and a shield, or something similar. We were just glad it went away.

Luke's Thoughts

[on crazy noises...]

at some point [along here] some kind of crazy brake squeal happens with my front right ! Really? Really? Am I cursed? This is more disconcerting stuff that I am not a fan of. Sounds like it could be just dirt or a rock or something stuck in the brakes, so we are going to find a spray wash and give it a good rinse. We carry on, but after a few hundred metres is another strange 'sproinging' sound, and then no more brake noise, so perhaps whatever was stuck in there has cleared itself. I'll still have a good look at the spray wash.

Near the mountainside town of Adagna, we encountered a very nice picnic area / mini chapel at the side of the road, with plenty of good parking space. It was a perfect time and setting for an early afternoon lunch.

S Bernardo Picnic area

Lunch at S. Bernardo Picnic Area

S Bernardo Picnic area

San Bernardo Chapel

At our lunchstop, I took out the official GTS Chronicles laptop and I surveyed the possible routes ahead. It was time to consider what route we were going to take to cross over into France.

Looking at the map, it quickly became clear that although we were perhaps only ten to twenty kilometres from the French border, getting there would not be a direct affair. It seemed like there was no paved highway route that stayed up in the mountains between here and the border. We could get close, but ultimately we would be forced to turn south, down to the coastal highways, and then drive back north (assuming we wanted to cross at a mountain pass, which we did).

Back down to the coast

So, given that, we decided to just head down to the coastal highway right away, giving us a bit of coastal highway driving to move things along.

It only took us about half an hour to drive down out of the mountains and to the coast, near the famous Italian resort town of Sanremo. And since we were down in civilized country - country that had self-service spray washes, we decided to clean up the cars before heading back north into the mountains. Brian proved to be a useful carwash-boy, helping us wash and towel off the cars afterwards.

Streets of Badalucco

Afternoon Autolavaggio

With the cars now nice and shiny, it was time to make the hop into France. We generally wanted to stay in the mountains and enjoy curvy roads at every opportunity, so we nixed the idea of simply driving west on the Autostrada towards Monaco and entering France that way. Instead, we drove west on the Autostrada only as far as the first highway route north that would lead us to a frontier mountain pass, which turned out to be at the coastal town of Ventimiglia. From here, we headed back inland, up the Valle del Roja, on the SS20. This valley's head was against the crest of the mountain ridges that formed the frontier between France and Italy, and there were two good crossings.

We decided to cross into France at the more southerly of the two passes - the Colle dell'Olivetta, elevation 1250feet / 380 metres. We weren't that far north from the coast here, and although the terrain was mountainous, it was not especially high altitude.

Crossing into France

Once over the the border into France, we realized that weren't actually at the height of land - the true "pass". We had to continue west for a few more uphill twists and turns before arriving at the Col de Vescavo - the true geographic divide. It was unusual for a mountainous country border to not follow the highest crest.

From here we descended west on the D93, via some excellent and fun switchbacks, into the Bevera Valley, a quiet and relatively undisturbed pocket of France's Alpes-Maritimes region/department. We were now on the lookout for a place to stay. Happily, it wasn't too late into the day, so we had time on our side for a change.

La Chapelle St. Gervais

We soon were in the bottom of the valley, approaching the main highway that ran into Sospel, the main town in this area. Just as we were about to turn onto this main road, we noticed a quaint grouping of farmhouse buildings and a sign on the side of the road: La Chapelle Saint Gervais - chambres d'hotes. hm. A bed-and-breakfast, right there in front of us.

I'm not sure what seized us, but we decided to simply to a cold-call drop-in and see if they had room. We carefully pulled into the gravel driveway, which led around into a small parking lot in the middle of the cluster of buildings. I got out of the Cayman and wandered around, looking for someone to talk to. And trying to mentally brush up on my french.

Rooms for the night

In between what appeared to be the main "house" building and a smaller subsidiary building, I could see a middle-aged woman in a blue working dress, busy hanging some wet laundry on a latticework. I introduced myself in the best french I could muster and asked if they had any space available for three gentlemen. In a casual, friendly, but also authoritative manner, she answered yes. They had room. And to my relief, she replied in french, indicating to me that I had at least made myself understood.

She led us up a flight of stairs to a patio entrance on the second floor of the smaller of the two main buildings. The sliding patio door opened on to a very spacious upper floor apartment, complete with kitchen and living room and a master bedroom that was up a half-flight of stairs from the main living space. Very nice.

We went back down to the courtyard/parking area to fetch our stuff. We asked the lady where it would be best to park our cars, pointing at our two red Porsche 718s, which were sitting amongst a few other cars what appeared to be a general parking area.

Without even so much as blinking an eye, she breezily said we could park them in a covered carport like area that appeared to be used to store farm equipment. Maybe she instantly felt that our cars deserved a special spot, I don't know. But it was a very nice gesture, and we appreciated it. She quickly moved to free up some spot in the carport area, and then watched as we slowly moved the two Porsches in. It was a perfect, safe, sheltered spot.

The Chapelle Saint Gervais

Attractive rooms

Grounds, Chapelle S. Gervais

Amazing Parking

We unloaded our gear and began bringing it up to the room. The lady (I shouldn't really be calling her that anymore, because she had introduced herself as Pascale) ... Pascale noticed us bring up our toiletries and clothes to the upper room. Now in english (she had by now figured out by my various french mistakes that I was actually english-Canadian), she casually offered to do us a few loads of laundry, if we needed it. We stopped and thought. We hadn't thought about laundry at all so far on this trip, being so busy and all with our various trip activities. But now that it was mentioned ... yeah, it really was probably time to do laundry. An amazing gesture on her part. We gladly agreed. It was such a touch of friendliness to offer to wash the yucky dirty clothes of strangers she had never before met.

After giving all of our dirty laundry to Pascale, she took a moment to show us around the back of our out-building. She opened musty old door and revealed to us ... an old chapel. Ah, right - the Chapelle Saint Gervais. As in, chapel. This was the actual chapel, and clearly they had renovated and extended the building to tack an apartment onto it. Whatever original vaulted ceiling the chapel may have had had been replaced with a regular ceiling, and then I suppose the unused space above this new ceiling had been used as the floor of the main bedroom of the apartment.

The old belltower

The Actual Chapelle

Pascale wasn't just showing us this to impress us with the historic attractions of the farm. There was also a cooler in the front corner of the chapel, full of drinks: bottled water, juice, fizzy drinks. She informed us that we could have anything in the cooler, but to simply leave 1 Euro (or 1 Euro 50, I can't recall), on the top of the cooler when doing so. I loved it. Trust-based and old school. So nice.

I had a further look around the property, taking a few pictures as I went. It was quite a beautiful place, with impeccably-restored buildings, beautifully-manicured gardens, and quaint tables and benches adorned with flowers and other garnishes. Clearly there were some actual farm aspects to it, for we could see a stable area with animals - horses and donkeys and such. And at least one friendly farm cat.

Pascale reported that there was no dinner served today (but that there would be breakfast, complete with fresh jam and still-warm bread from the nearby town). She suggested that we could simply walk into the nearby town of Sospel, where there were plenty of restaurants open late. That, we agreed, was a great idea, and we did just that.

Walk to Sospel

The first part of the walk to the town of Sospel was along the main highway, and not super interesting. As we got to the town, though, we were able to branch off onto some really pretty and narrow old streets. Eventually we ended up on the "main drag", so to speak, of Sospel, the Avenue Jean Medécin. There were a number of restaurants along here with outdoor patio seating. The seating was also adjacent to the main river, which ran through the center of town here in a walled-off channel.

We reflected on our day as we waited for our dishes to arrive. It had been very eventful once again: the rock-crawling down from the rifugio, the wild-and-remote Passo Teglia, and this really amazing French farm bed-and-breakfast that we had lucked into. Certainly from the perspective of the joys of free-roam road-tripping, things were going very well.

Walking to Sospel

Dinner at Sousper

Town of Sospel

It was dusk by the time we finished our meal. We then walked the twenty-five minutes back to the Chapelle Saint Gervais. We checked in on the Cayman and the Boxster, still happily tucked into their safe little covered spots in the corner of Pascale's farm courtyard. We gathered our cleaned clothes, which Pascale had meticulously hung to dry for us (!), had a last look at the peaceful surroundings of the Bévéra Valley, and then climbed up the stairs to our quaint little apartment to retire for the night.

Luke's Thoughts

[on enjoying solitude...]

I take my sweet time walking back. Andrew has to go to the washroom so he rushes off ahead, but I don't mind. I'm definitely finding I enjoy being alone with myself and my thoughts on this trip. It's nice to walk along alone and just soak up the place. The dusk is falling and things are cooling off, though I can feel the heat coming off the road from the scorching of the day. I definitely need a shower!

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