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

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Tuesday, August 1st, 2023 - The French Alps

To New Heights!

Morning at a rustic French farm bed & breakfast. A beautiful warm morning. A morning where our two steeds - our two Carmine Red Porsche 718 GTS 4.0s - waited safely in their farmyard stables.

Our commodious apartment

Morning at the Chapelle

We emerged from our lovely upstairs apartment, down the stairs and over to the farm's main building. Tables were arranged on a side patio and in a large central dining area inside, along with a table filled with all sorts of delicious fresh fare: jams, cheeses, honey, fruit, breads, pastries, juices, coffee and tea.

French breakfast goodness

Breakfast Hall

Crewmember Breakfast

We chose to sit at one of the outside tables and enjoyed a truly luxurious breakfast. Everything was decorated to perfection. The bread was still warm; the fruit was fresh, crisp; the butter creamy; the coffee robust and full-bodied.

We got to know a little more about Pascale as she busied herself with managing the breakfast. She was the owner and operator of the bed and breakfast here, and of the farm in general. The farm aspect was mostly focused on the horses and donkeys she had. We also discovered that she was a bit of a fan of sports cars, and had been admiring our double-red Porsches. I wonder if she, like the student at the Rifugio Pian dell'Arma, had thought that maybe we were auto journalists or Porsche employees....

courtesy Pascale

A Secret Porsche-phile?

Our Stylish Photographer

After learning that Pascale had a little soft spot for our cars, I suggested that we could perhaps go for a ride, up the twisty road back to the pass we had come in on.

Cool Ride

So, before heading off on our day, Pascale and I hopped in the Cayman, and I drove her up the nearby D93 to the Col de Vescavo. It was only a five-minute drive but it gave us the time to sample the sublime Porsche sportscar experience. I kept things at about 5/10ths, unsure of what level of driving Pascale was comfortable. In the last few hairpins, as the Cayman's oil temperature was fully warmed up, I dipped more deeply into throttle and harder into the corners. I elicited a smile of approval. No problem!

As we drove up to the pass, I thought that it might be nice to give Pascale a little extra-surprise gift, something to thank her for being such a wonderful host and for having such a great place for wayward travelers such as ourselves. I offered to switch places with her, to let her pilot the Cayman back down to the farm. I think she was a little surprised, but also readily agreed.

At the pass, we did a little bit of glam-shooting with Cayman. Then, Pascale hopped into the driver's seat, I into the passenger seat, and we started the ride back down.

courtesy Pascale

Pascale and the Cayman

Pascale handled the car with a sort of casualness that showed she was no stranger to at least some amount of spirited driving. And, being a European, had no problem with driving a manual-transmissioned car. She seemed to get a touch close to the roadside bushes in spots, but I was probably just projecting the sense of vehicle space that a typical North American driver has, which is to say, seems to be a full extra car-width all directions.

Luke's Thoughts

[on Pascale's ride...]

After a short while, the Cayman duo arrive back, with Pascale behind the wheel, with a big grin on her face. Good for Andrew! Not so sure I would do that ...

We made short work of the switchbacks and curves and were soon back at the Chapelle. She hopped out with a smile.

And with that, we said our goodbyes. Staying at La Chapelle had been delightful. The beautiful grounds, buildings, the chapel, the serve-yourself drinks cooler, the fresh breakfast, the airy apartment, the premium parking for the 718s, the washing of our clothes! The list goes on and on! Thank you so very much, Pascale! It was a pleasure meeting you.

Now, to driving. This was our first "real" driving day in France. A whole new frontier, full of excellent roads, awaited us. I had done extensive research to beef up my "good roads" database content in eastern France, and there was so much to choose from, it was hard to decide what to do. One thing was for sure, though ... to maintain our general itinerary, we needed to head north.

Luke's Thoughts

[on encountering more gremlins...]

It's time for us to say our farewell, and turn north, heading in the general direction of Switzerland. As we progress, the little digital gauge to the right of my tach illuminates another warning for me. It's the 'Engine Control Fault - Driving Permitted' error again. WTF? I'm not sure what is going on, and it's disconcerting to say the least, but there are no outward signs of any issues. Of course anything and everything is covered under warranty, but still. Not much fun on our trip to have that in the back of my mind particularly when we are in the mountain boonies. Driving along a little more for a few minutes and the error clears itself. Strange.

Originally I thought to up the Col de Turini - a famous pass from the Tour de France, but then spotted some potentially better roads a touch further west, so we backtracked and went around to the next highway to the west (the D2204) and followed that north. This brought us along some excellent roads in some lower-altitude mountains. The landscape seemed a tad more arid than it had been in the Apennines of Italy. A touch more scrub, a touch less in the way of trees. The highway itself was a mix of widths, sometimes nice and wide and well-paved and lined, at other times a bit more narrow. The pavement overall seemed to be more ... I don't know ... a bit more "grainy"? Something subtly different about the texture.

We went over several minor passes along this segment of our journey north - the Col Saint-Jean, the Col de Braus, the Col de l'Ablè, the Pas de l'Escouse. Much of these lower, more forested routes were nice and empty; we didn't encounter a lot of traffic.

Forest Riding

Col de l'Able

Action shot time

Col de l'Able

French Twisties

Luceram, France

We dipped down into the town of Luceram before heading north on the D73 - the Route de Loda. Looking at the map post-trip, I kind of regret not taking the mountainous bypass route around Luceram on the D21/D2566. I see that there are some incredible twisties on both of those roads. I wistfully regret my choice here.

Some nice curves on the D73 brought us to the major valley of Vèsubie. The main function of this valley from our perspective is that it gave us a straightforward way to make some good progress northward, along normal arterial, not-that-twisty valley-bottom highway.

Luceram, France

Prep for hairpin shots

North on D73

Arid Twisties

Col de Porte

Lantosque, France

Through Valdeblore

Luke's Thoughts

[on our various issues...]

Each of us seem to have some little niggling things that happen to us on and off as the trip progresses, and this time around it's [crewmember] Brian's turn as his glasses have gotten missing. We make a U-turn and go back to the last gas stop we sure enough we find them in the grass where he had slipped and fell on a particular slope. Phew.

Driving north up the Vèsubie valley eventually brought us to its head, at the Col Saint-Martin. Here, we dropped down into the Tinée Valley - another major valley in this part of the Alpes-Maritimes, and continued north. This was a particularly prominent and major mountain valley draining a huge swath of the southern-eastern alps in this area. We made good time up this valley, which narrowed into fairly deep vee. Although we could see rocky mountaintops far above us on each side, down where we were in the bottom, it was thickly forested on both sides. For much of the way up this valley, we were within the borders of the Parc national du Mercantour.

It was past 4pm when we decided we should have a stop to stretch our legs and have our lunch picnic (a bit late for lunch, but hey, we had been having fun piloting two Porsche 718 GTS 4.0s ... it's hard to stop). Also, I needed to start looking for a place to stay for the night.

We located an excellent picnic area not far off the main highway, near the community of Drogon. This particular picnic spot had nice covered picnic tables.

Parc National du Mercantour

Afternoon picnic stop

I scanned through booking.com, looking for anything reasonable a few hours north of us. I wasn't trying to find anything particularly special, just something on the way that would serve as a decent and clean waystop. Didn't need any castles, or quaint farms, or rustic rifugios.

It didn't take long - I found a spot in the town of Vars - a ski resort town that was presumably fairly quiet in the summer, and for a good price. It was at the Hotel Le Monte Pente. 99 Euros for the all of us, and with three separate beds. Most reasonable!

Valley picnic stop

The grand finale of the day was still ahead: some driving over some truly high-altitude passes, with grand mountain scenery and grand mountain twisties! With a definitive destination now in hand, and with that destination not too far away (perhaps eighty kilometres), we could complete the day's highlights without feeling rushed.

With lunch finished and accommodations booked, we continued north up the Tinée Valley. The valley gradually kept rising, rising, rising, until eventually, near a cluster of small historic buildings (I believe in a spot called Pra), at about an elevation of 5400 feet / 1650m, we started to break out of the trees and into true alpine. And how glorious it was! The fresh green of spring and early summer had given way to golden alpine meadows, rippling in a summer breeze. The road started to climb up into this open meadowscape in well-paved, tight switchbacks and curves. Around us were high crags - not high enough to still retain the late snows of summer, but more than high enough to show that we were in serious mountain country now. Spectacular. Perhaps the only downside was there was definitely more tourist traffic on this road than there had been at any other road so far today. Not surprising, given its beauty. At least this wasn't a weekend day. Thank God for that.

Col des Fourches

Val de Tinee

In the Maritime Alps

As we continued our climb up to a pass called the Col des Fourches, we could see above us a huge flock of sheep. They were being guided down the meadows towards us by a shepherd. Very cool.

With the sheep and the incredible scenery, it was time to stop and collect some record of this beautiful place. While the baa-ing of sheep and the tinkling of their bells continued, I got out the drone and did a little bit of aerial photography, and at the same time Luke started setting up some external cameras on the cars in preparation for some action videography in the mountain twisties.

Impressive Flock

Video setup

The flock of sheep was guided down and across the road in front of us, and we had to wait a bit for being able to proceed. We then continued higher, cameras rolling, until we passed through an interesting little cluster of historic buildings, known as the Camp des Fourches. Apparently this was a bivuoac / military barracks for the French Alpine Army in the late 1800s.

Camp des fourches

D73 Runs

GTS Chronicles, Col des Fourches

Awesome Tarmac

Col des Fourches

After collecting several more excellent video clips and photos near the Col des Fourches, we continued north. The road continued to climb, traversing over to an even higher and more impressive pass - the Col de La Bonette. We were in the high alpine now, and even the meadows had started to peter out, with the terrain trending towards barren alpine rock and soil. Adding to the sense of alpine-ness was the fact that the road didn't have any fences or barriers, even though the dropoffs were now pretty substantial. That sort of thing doesn't really bother me, but I know there are those that would be a little freaked out by this road.

Luke's Thoughts

[on capturing the French Alps...]

I can't wait to see the outcome of all of this photo/video capturing. There are going to be some majestic shots. For a little bit, some sheep are threatening to get in the way, and we sit calmly on the shoulder of the road, engines off, just drinking it all in , while the border collies soon sort them out. Dad would love seeing them in action for real. Most impressive.

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

Col de la Bonette

The road reached the highpoint at the Col de La Bonnette, at an altitude of 8850 feet / 2700 metres. There's a claim here that this is Europe's highest paved through-road - a fact that I was unsure about - so, I looked it up. It is indeed claimed to be true, except I think there was some fudging going on, as the stated altitude of the pass in the literature is 2800 metres (9186 feet), and there was no way my GPS altitude was off that much. Maybe they were referring to a little one-way paved loop around the neighboring Cime de la Bonette, which we didn't do. Because it was a loop, I guess you could consider that a "through" road.

In any case, we were damn high here - obviously higher than we had been at any point so far on our trip. We were also on the boundary of two of France's "departments" (sort of like their version of provinces?): the Alpes-Maritimes (where we had driven from), and the Alpes-De-Haute-Provence (into which we were now crossing).

On the far side of the pass, we took an iconic commemorative shot of The GTS Chronicles - on the "highest" paved through-road in Europe. Hey, you wonderful Porsches! Congrats on reaching great heights, you two!

the Highest Hero Shot

Col de la Bonnette.

Cayman-Boxster fender analysis

Seeing as 7pm wasn't too far off, and we still had some distance to go to get to our hotel, we decided we had better head off. The descent from the Col de la Bonnette was as dramatically scenic as the ascent, and as twisty as well. The brakes of our GTSes performed flawlessly and without fade as we wound through the many downhill twists and turns.

Partway down the descent from Col de la Bonette, I had an unfortunate interaction with a marmot. I think he mostly went underneath the car but I puckered up a bit as it happened, sorry for both the marmot and also a touch worried about my front splitter and radiator. We stopped to have a look and, surprisingly, there was no actual damage to the front lip. And no sign of the marmot (or parts of the marmot), either. The only sign was that my center RGS radiator grill was slightly bent inwards. After a bit of tool-hooking from Luke, it was as good as new.

Descending from Bonette

Marmot aftermath

After the marmot incident, our descent continued without incident. The road descended for a long, long way, eventually depositing us in the bottom of a brand new valley, the Ubaye Valley. We turned north here. Thirty more kilometres and one more mountain pass to go before reaching our hotel in the little town of Vars.

The upper Ubaye Valley was beautiful - like all of the other alpine landscape around here. We unfortunately just didn't have the time to stop and take it in. At the head of the valley, the D902 highway climbed up in a few switchbacks to the Col de Vars, at about 6800 feet / 2100 meters. Not nearly as high as had been the Col de la Bonette, but still more than high enough to rise up into full alpine terrain, complete with beautiful golden-meadows and a few sets of fun mountain switchbacks.

Down from the Col de Vars. It was a fairly straight and normal descent right down into the town of Vars, which is composed of an upper and lower section. Our hotel was in the lower section, which took a few more minutes to reach. Soon we saw the outline of our Hotel - a fairly standard-looking ski-resort sort of hotel complex. Things looked pretty quiet. Clearly summer was their off-season.

Our Auberge for the night

We parked our cars in a paved back-lot behind the hotel. Via booking.com, I had received messages about how we were to access our room. The instructions stated that no one would be there to receive us at our arrival time, but that we could use a pin-pad at the main entrance to gain access.

I spent some time fiddling with the pin-pad, but I could not get the door open. Fortunately, the messages also contained a backup: a number and name, to be used if we could not get in.

I guess it was now time to exercise the backup option, eh? I got on the phone and dialled the number for "Davide", our emergency backup contact.

After a few rings, we got an answer. I introduced myself and explained to Davide that we were unable to get the door open. He said he was out on an errand and would be at the hotel in a few tens of minutes.

True to his word, Davide - a wiry and energetic man with dark hair and a slim build, showed up and greeted us. He showed us to our room, which turned out to be rather small and with a very space-efficient, functional bunk-bed setup, but it had everything we needed: a bathroom, separate beds, and it was clean. So, all good with us, especially for the quite good price of 33 Euros per person.

David turned out to be quite chatty and helpful, and he gave us lots of good advice about the area, where we could eat for dinner, and so on. He took some interest in our cars, inquiring about whether we were "special" in the way that many had asked before him (were we with Porsche? were we journalists, etc). He offered to let us park our cars in the narrow courtyard near the main door, which would only allow two small cars to fit and which would allow us to ensure that no other cars would be able to park near us. Very nice. The special treatment of the Boxster/Cayman twins continued even here!

La Marmotte - our restaurant in the French mountain town of Vars on the evening of August 2

I can't remember exactly what Davide did, but he did get us to a point where we could open the main door ourselves. I wasn't sure if he showed us how to properly use the pin pad or if he simply gave us keys. In any case, we were set - our room was secure, we knew how to get in, where we would park the cars, and we knew where we were going to eat. Coincidentally, the restaurant that Davide had recommended to us was called La Marmotte - The Marmot. The universe telling me something about the poor creature I had interacted with back at the Col de la Bonnette? oo-ee-ooo!

Dinner at La Marmotte consisted of pizza (a fairly common theme on our travels), but to be fair it was actually pretty good pizza, along with some quite good beer. It was fairly late when we returned to the hotel, with the dark of night rapidly approaching. We shoehorned the Boxster and the Cayman into the little space in the Hotel's front courtyard. Davide had told us to leave the space in front of a little utility garage clear, and we had to share some space with a ski car gondola, which had been parked next to that garage entrance. As a result, we had very little square footage with which to work. We were squeezed in there pretty good!

Interactive trackmap with photo points - August 01 - click map to view

Interactive trackmap with photo points - August 01 - click to view

August 1 - Drive Data

Start Time: 10:55a.m.

End Time: 7:58p.m.

Duration: 9h3m

Distance: 215.36 km (133.82 mi)

Average Speed: 23.8 km/hr (14.8 mph)

Start Elevation: 1483ft (452m) *

Max Elevation: 8877ft (2706m) *

Min Elevation: 1356ft (413m) *

End Elevation: 5492ft (1674m) *