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

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Tuesday, July 25, 2023 - The Dolomites II

A Porsche's Playground - this time in the sun

The overnight storms had blown through, and we awoke to a crisp cool Tuesday morning with undercast in the valleys below us (meaning we were above the clouds). I rushed outside to capture this phenomenon, as it is often fleeting (as well being very beautiful).

+6C and above the clouds

Amazing Wallpaper Shots

Cayman GTS at Pso Valparola

Boxster GTS at Pso Valparola

Sunnying up

Having spent time doing my media processing the night before (in conjunction with simply becoming a bit more efficient at getting ready), our little three-person crew was ready to roll out right after breakfast, a little bit past 9:00 am. Since the morning was scenic and sunny and we were already right next to a good set of switchbacks (we could look down on the state road leading up from the Alta Badia valley and could see that it was very nice and twisty), I decided that we should do our first photo shoot of the day right from here (from the grounds of the rifugio). I handed the keys of the Cayman to Jenn and headed over to a nearby overlook to set up the drone for some aerial photography. Luke and Jenn then did a few runs down northward, putting together a nice sequence of curves, and then turning around and coming back up those same curves to the rifugio. I think I even saw Jenn get the Cayman a little sideways in a few spots. Must have been cold rubber combined with a bit too much from the grunty 4.0-litre in 2nd gear.

Prepping for a photo shoot

I felt we weren't getting enough tracking aerial shots (where the drone is following the cars through some cool scenery). I decided that the nearby Passo Valparola - a relatively flat area where the highway passes through a field of huge Dolomitic boulders - would be a good place to try that. I got myself dropped off at roughly the middle of the pass, where I had a nice gravel area from which to take off and a good view of the road in both directions. I set myself up with one of the radios so that I could communicate with Luke and coordinate the run.

It was ... surprisingly difficult. Mostly because there was enough traffic that it was hard to time a run where there were not other cars in the shot, but also because it was more difficult than you would think to properly anticipate and then keep pace with the cars. It was easy to get slightly disoriented and then you'd be out of position, at which point you really don't have the speed or time to get back in position. This meant re-setting the whole scenario and running it again. And inevitably some other little thing goes wrong and ruins that run, too.

Eventually I got a semi-decent capture and called it a wrap. We'd already burned almost an hour of driving time and it was time to move on to better things.

Return to Passo Giau

With the beautiful morning weather, I really wanted to go back and run that serpentine section of the highway on the northern slopes of the Passo Giau. It did mean re-driving some pavement we had already covered, but I felt it was worth it. I simply love that little bit of road. It has just the right combination of forest and grassy verge and perfect curves and mountain backdrop.

East Through Pso Valparola

Highway to Heaven

About forty-five minutes later, we arrived at the area with amazing serpentine curves on SP648, on the northern slopes of below Passo Giau. The pavement was now sufficiently dry that we were able to give the curves a good workout. The Cayman (and presumably the Boxster too, although I can't speak directly for Luke) performed flawlessly, tenaciously holding in the tight 2nd (and sometimes 1st) gear corners and rocketing across the short straights to sure-footedly slow down for the next hairpin. Crisp gear-shifts, responsive blips to the throttle, and that nice, satisfying flat-six growl.

We next decided to capture some off-the-car shots. As in, shots from a camera mounted on the body but slightly away from it - like you see on countless Top Gear / Carfection / Everyday Driver ... you name it ... videos. You've seen these shots. Off the fender. Low down near the ground. Facing the exhaust. That sort of thing. And I mean, after all, we brought all this mounting gear... we had better use it!

Cars and Cows

Bovine neighbours

So we spent the next hour or so dreaming up different mounts - on the bumper, low on the door, high on the fender, etc. I was careful to use the right neutral density filter and set the cameras up with the proper shutter speeds so as to avoid those nasty staccato-type effects that I feel ruin the cinematic feel of the sequences. And apart from one close encounter with a roadside bush (maybe the camera was mounted a touch far too out and I was paying perhaps not enough attention), we managed to record some good stuff without incident (and as a bonus, we got to blast up and down those excellent curves a few more times).

Setting up for side filming

Front Mount Action

Remote View

Boxster Rearward View

Bumper Cam

Onwards GTS 4.0 Twins!

The Serpentines

We spent a good two hours of time on the twisties below Passo Giau. It was time well spent: fun, and very fruitful in terms of capturing all sorts of cool shots from different angles. I had been feeling like I was not successfully capturing the essence of our driving up to this point, and these couple of hours had helped immensely - plus gave us some great experience for future setups.

Luke's Thoughts

[on being time efficient...]

We are conscious of time, and the need to both make progress but also capture the experience. One thing I know slows us down, and am sure is frustrating for others, is that every time I get back in the car, I have to hook the headset back up to my ear and click the microphone back onto my seatbelt. It's a little process that I am starting to be able to do unconsciously but it still takes time.

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

We had to now turn our minds to our larger itinerary; we had a hard deadline approaching: the crew-swapover exchange point between crewmembers Jenn and Andy. Andy was flying into the Venice airport, and Jenn was meeting up with a friend in Venice and heading off for her own private bit of vacationing. Venice was about two or three hours drive from our current point and the meetup time at the airport was late the next morning. Therefore ... we needed to head south now and cover part of that distance. Maybe not totally exiting the Dolomites, but positioning ourselves for a quick shot down to Venice the next morning.

The simplest and most direct thing to do was to head back down to Cortina D'Ampezzo, not far below where we were, and take the main arterial route from there south, down the valley of the Boite. When we got as far as we wanted to go in a southerly direction, we could look for a mountain rifugio to spend our last night in the Dolomites.

On to next destination

Cortina D'ampezzo

Follow Mode

Our route back down the main highway from Cortina closed a loop for us: we ended up back in the region of the Cadore Valley, which we'd traversed two days before. We drove as far as the town of Valle di Cadore, and stopped at a supermarket to stock up on our depleted supply of travel food.

Learning my lesson from the day before, I started looking around for places to stay, this time simply sticking to finding rifugios on the map and calling ones that fit our general criteria.

As it turned out, the rifugio that had space for us was back up at Passo Remauro. This was also a pass that we had driven over a couple of days before, but in the rain. I recalled that the road up to that pass was excellent. And so, even though it meant some more backtracking, I was keen to give that road another shot. The afternoon was sunny and showed no immediate sign of turning rainy.

A Superb bit of twisties

The SP347 - the highway leading up to the Passo Remauro - indeed was dry this time. It was even better than I remembered it, despite having only having been on it not 48 hours prior. It had a particularly fun topology: Very tight turns and some hairpins, as you would expect, but also a lot of small esses and fun little undulations, up and down. At times these sharp curves, esses and elevation changes came together in just the right way to allow us to corner especially hard, power out of tight corners, and feel all sorts of subtle unusual g-forces. Our GTSes handled it all in a completely unfazed manner. You could just throw whatever at these cars and they soaked it up. We had by now completed our Preuninger break-in, and so we had the added bonus of experiencing the full breadth our four-litre flat sixes, all the way to their screaming 7800-rpm redlines.

Rifugio Remauro

We arrived at the rifugio Passo Remauro at a very reasonable 5pm. We registered and were given the keys to our room, which was a delightful corner suite with a beautiful balcony looking south to the Sassolungo di Cibiana - a long crest of mountain ridge across the valley from us.

After settling into our room, we had a bit more time available before dinner. We decided to hop in the Porsches and head back down to sample a bit more of that great stretch of twisties. In addition to all of the qualities I described above, there was hardly any traffic on this Tuesday evening. What a road! I was really feeling like we were now making up for our day of soaked-out driving.

Beautiful Balcony View

Careful photo prep

Flowers and Sassolungo

Evening Rains

Evening Mists

We returned to the rifugio for dinner. Just in time, too, for shortly after we parked the cars, a new batch of clouds came in and served us up an hour or so of rain. No matter to us, since our driving was done for the day.

We went to bed with happy memories of today's excellent driving experiences, a little sad that we would soon be leaving the Dolomites, but also excited for the next phase of the Great GTS Chronicles Delivery Road Trip Adventure.

Interactive trackmap with photo points - July 25 - click map to view

Interactive trackmap with photo points - July 25 - click to view

July 25 - Drive Data

Start Time: 9:24a.m.

End Time: 4:43p.m.

Duration: 7h19m

Distance: 103.66 km (64.41 mi)

Average Speed: 14.2 km/hr (8.8 mph)

Start Elevation: 7262ft (2214m) *

Max Elevation: 7262ft (2214m) *

Min Elevation: 2572ft (784m) *

End Elevation: 4970ft (1515m) *