After the best shower so far, and breakfast that didn’t need to be weighed, a route replan was necessary.
Travelling into the mountains at this time of year carried a significant risk that early snowfall would close some of the passes, and unfortunately a couple on our route had been shut for this reason. So we headed south from Vitznau, missing our turn at Wassen, on to Andermatt from where we picked up the planned route again. Sustenpass will have to wait for another trip!
The weather was really bad – heavy rain and freezing temperatures kept us inside the car, but first on the revised route was Oberalppass which took us up to 2,044m altitude and just above zero celcius. We saw the red lighthouse which marks the source of the Rhine but didn’t stop.
Then lunch. We needed a stop for fuel, so found a supermarket which had a nice looking café, serving soup and cake, so Jo had what she says was a conversation entirely in German (I’m doubtful, and suspect a lot of pointing was involved) to order.
Onto the next pass, which was a lot more exciting mostly due to the road being less than 2 cars wide for a good proportion! Albulapass is 2,312m at its highest point, and when we were at its peak it was snowing and very, very wet. We were lucky for most of the drive that we didn’t follow anything (a VW van was trying, and failing, to keep up), but those we did catch were passed very carefully.
Once safely at the bottom we then continued on to Pontresina, for our next hotel stop. The best hotel so far, but then it was considerably more expensive than all the previous stays. The view from the bedroom clearly added some CHF to the bill.
We had a short wander round the town once we’d unloaded the car, and it was clear a lot of the hotels were relatively old and owned by generations of (rich) families. The view of the mountain came and went as the clouds rolled in.
It turned out that it was very cold outside, so we were glad to get back to the hotel, and sat in the bar and had a glass of wine whilst it got darker and the snow began to fall. Heavily.
Onto dinner. We decided to stay in the hotel since a) it was snowing and b) it was cold outside and c) the menu looked good. And it was. We had two local dishes: a meat and cheese platter, and a sort of pizza. It came with a bowl of what Jo thought was apple sauce, which she spread thickly on her bread, loaded her cheese and took a bite. It was fig mustard. For dessert we had ice cream. The smallest pot in the world, yours for only CHF 6.00 – about £5.70. Oh, and the tap water cost CHF 3.50. Thieving Swiss.
Whilst staying just inside France, we planned to visit the Musée National de l’Automobile in Mulhouse, a collection of more than 500 cars, 2,823 of which were Bugattis (or approaching that number). Yes, a car museum. It had 2 things going for it, amongst a lot of really old cars (motorised carriages) – a Ford RS200 rally car and a TinTin exhibition with all the cars from the books.
To save on pages and pages of photos, here’s a few of my favourites, then a gallery for anyone who wants to see 2,823 Bugattis (and some other stuff too).
From here we began our journey to the start point for the next chunk of driving. This meant a few fast and less fast roads through Baden to Vitznau, on the shore of Lake Lucerne.
Our hotel for the evening was a very nice one, with an indecipherable restaurant system, at least it was based on the information online. Neuro Campus Hotel DAS MORGEN was its name (unclear why aside from their use of various neuroscience terms around the hotel).
The car had its own space – well, 2 spaces as it was too wide for a single space, and everyone else had opted to double park, so we did the same. The room was excellent, with hanging chair, balcony and power sockets we couldn’t use as the Swiss system is apparently unique. Surprise.
We arrived around 3.30pm, probably the earliest so far this trip, so we had a good walk round Vitznau – not very big, but with some huge hotels, some of which were quite grand.
Given the next day was a very big one, we opted for an early dinner. We discovered why we were confused about their restaurants – it’s a buffet which you pay for by weight!! So the soup, main courses and dessert all got fat checked.
Today was to be the first ‘proper’ big driving day, as we headed through the Black Forest from Rastatt in Germany, along the winding forest roads, eventually arriving in Basel on the Swiss side from where we’d make a stop to see Jo’s sister, Kate, for dinner, then onto Saint Louis in France for our next overnight stop.
Breakfast in our self-service hotel was less self-service than the faceless check-in, as someone bothered to show themselves and provide a really nice continental breakfast with a huge plate of scrambled eggs to share. Then they took payment for the room and disappeared.
Then out to pack the car (again). The trees are really turning in this part of the world, and the car and surrounding road was covered. A street sweeper passed…twice…but made little impact as the leaves were wet and stuck to the ground.
With the complicated route pre-programmed into Google Maps (albeit following the B500 for most of the route) we set off. Problem. The B500 was closed for a 10km stretch around 1/4 of the way into our route. Google Maps did try to re-route, but I didn’t fancy some of the changes so we made our own way to beyond the road closure. Problem. The roads were quite cloudy – we couldn’t see a great deal, and the rain was coming down hard. Jo drove first, getting us to beyond the blockage, but enjoyed being able to drive slowly for the reasons stated.
During the day we didn’t take a lot of pictures of the route as it was pretty foul outside, if indeed you could see anything at all through the cloud. So instead, here’s a short video of the things we saw (or didn’t) – including the route blockage – and a couple of photos from the dry!! I can assure you most of the route was very pretty despite the weather!
We stopped for lunch briefly in a small town (name escapes me, it was a bit dull!) and had Black Forest cake (of course).
Then, up the hill from this town we stopped to have a look over the valley, and saw a sign for a waterfall. We put all our waterproofs on, after digging them out from the boot, then walked towards it…and saw a man in a little hut taking €8 from each passing tourist for the pleasure of looking at what we assumed was HIS waterfall. Sod that and sod him. We turned around and went back up to the car, and left.
Actually, before we left we saw two older gentlemen taking photos of something in the trees – realised they were birding (yawn), then saw a couple of red squirrels! The view from the car park wasn’t bad too.
We drove on a bit more, and saw some fantastic views, as the rain was stopping and the cloud lifting.
It was at this point we realised we had a problem. The car was making a nasty rattling noise from the exhaust exit. I had a good look and listen, and figured it was something loose in the area around the exhaust valve. This valve is pure vanity – it opens when you enable Sport (or Sport Plus) mode to make the car sound angrier/better/noisier. Nevertheless, we thought a quick trip to a Porsche garage would be worthwhile. One was only 20km away, on the route we were taking. A stop there didn’t help. It was only a small VAG Group service centre in a provincial town, and the technician who kindly looked at it didn’t speak English, so we all struggled a bit with understanding each other. He seemed to think it was “OK”.
We crossed the border into Switzerland – each time we cross a border the car reminds us of the speed limits. Very kind.
We stopped at another Porsche dealer, in Basel, again on the route. But this one was a sales dealer only, with amongst other things a lovely GT3 RS and 718 Spyder RS for sale, though he was reluctant to lend me the Spyder. He suggested we visit the other dealer in Basel. On arrival, this was obviously a proper main dealer (phew) who looked after us after demanding papers (proof of registration, which we had with us), and tried to fill us with coffee regularly. Eventually 3 technicians put the car on a ramp, and together we looked for the issue – the agreed with me, that it was the valve, but this needed a part they don’t have, so we proceeded to use cable ties and a piece of rubber hose to wedge the valve so it couldn’t rattle. Solved for now….not sure how long it will last though!!
Being a main dealer they had a very nice selection of cars for sale – a GT4 RS, a 718 Spyder RS with the Weissach pack, and an Oak Green GT3 Touring. One day.
With the nasty rattle dulled, at least for now, we pushed on through Basel rush hour traffic and decided, given the time, that we’d go straight to Kate’s rather than the hotel. She chose the dinner venue, a traditional restaurant nearby – superb food, but way too much of it and I had to hoover Jo’s cordon bleu.
Then onto the hotel, back in France. Today we crossed 2 borders (Germany to Switzerland, then Switzerland to France). This was chosen to help us get to our first stop the following day, but we arrived late and in the dark so we have no idea what the town looks like!
The walk to the room amused me slightly. First floor, then a long way through stripey corridors, the pattern of the walls reminding me of the film “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”. Then we arrived at the door of the room. I’ll let you draw your own conclusion as to what was in my head at this point.
Our cell was very nice indeed. In the loft space, access to the shower for short people was fine, otherwise slightly dangerous. Otherwise another very nice hotel room. We’ll see what the rest of the hotel is like tomorrow….
Another day, another breakfast. This time the hotel’s continental breakfast, with just the kind of thing we were after, in their tiny dining room overlooking a small courtyard.
We knew we had a significant autoroute drive ahead of us, so decided to spend the morning in Reims, first visiting one of the champagne producers, before finding lunch. We settled on the Pommery brand (never had it before, no affiliation, etc..) and found their extensive estate situated right on the edge of the city. Hugely grand buildings, and lots of them. Inside we paid for 2 tickets – one with a glass of champagne for Jo, the other without for me as I was driver for the day.
The champagne bar man presented Jo with her drink and explained a little about the brand and the bottle she’d chosen (there were 3 options). She said she quite liked the taste of it, not as dry as those we have had in the past. Perhaps a future purchase, back home.
Then onto a self-guided tour. Basically you can wander the vast caverns under the buildings – there are 18km of tunnels, you only see a small part of it – where they make and store the champagne. Bottles stacked in all kinds of configurations, absolutely everywhere. And we only saw a tiny part of the workplace for 70 employees. There were also various art installations around the route. No idea why.
Once finished with Pommery, we retraced the short drive back into Reims to the previous night’s hotel as there was a boulangerie nearby I thought might work for lunch. It did. Ham and cheese baguette, a thing that was like the top of a Croque Monsieur but on pastry not bread, and two cakes for later – an apple tart and a flan vanille. We had a car picnic and headed off on the long drive….
The journey itself was mostly devoid of interest. We had 3 tolls to go through, which meant I could stick in in Sport Plus and put my foot to the floor (apart from one where police were stopping cars on the other side of the gate, not sure why). And a car had gone under the back of a lorry on the other carriageway, which looked like quite a bad day for the car driver. Other than that, nearly 4 hours on one road.
On arrival in Rastatt we found the hotel. It didn’t look like a hotel, despite a big sign on the wall, as the ground floor (which used to be a restaurant) was empty. At the hotel door (which could have been any door to any property) there was a Ring doorbell with a sign saying press for hotel. We pressed and a voice began to check us in!! The key was in a clever safe on the wall above the doorbell, and that was it – we were in. The hotel was entirely unmanned, with only 5 rooms, a small dining room (breakfast ordered for 8am) and a little kitchen area with snacks for you to take and mark down on a sheet for your room so they could bill you. Weird experience, but I guess they couldn’t make it work with staff there so they made it some kind of remotely-operated affair. The cameras everywhere inside made it have a bit of a Big Brother feel! Super comfortable room though.
After unloading the car we wandered into Rastatt, which is a bit like the Huddersfield of Germany – empty shops, no restaurants, you get the idea. Impressive buildings though, which looked to be municipal in some way.
On the walk back we found a restaurant for dinner (we only saw two, both extremely German) and so went back to the hotel, got changed and returned for food. Wow, amazing food…once we’d used Google Translate on the menu to figure out what to order. The waitress even gave Jo a free potato shnapps (a local thing) to have with her cherry shnapps. The waitress wasn’t wrong when she said it was disgusting. It was foul. Dinner though, was amazing – Hunter’s schnitzel and beef roulade, followed by apple fritters with ice cream AND custard (it came that way, we weren’t being pigs). And the local beer.
We woke in the Relish a bit tired as the bed wasn’t quite as good as it first seemed. Never mind, time for a shower. Or time to get water-boarded by leaking shower head. On the way down to breakfast we took a walk by the sea, a bit windy and dull. Then back for breakfast at exactly the prescribed time, 08:15. There were a few juices, pieces of fruit and bread for toasting available so we grabbed a few items before our ordered hot breakfast arrived – a very basic omelette and avocado on toast. So unexciting we didn’t take pictures.
We repacked the car (this is going to be a daily occurrence) and headed off to the Channel Tunnel, just 15 minutes away. My first time, Jo’s second, we waited a bit for boarding before driving towards the train in what seemed a bizarre and unnecessary sequence of roads, punctuated by waiting in line with at passport control (twice) or for other unknown reasons. Once at the train we boarded the “Large” vehicles carriage – a good job as it felt pretty narrow and I didn’t fancy having scraped alloys.
It was, however, a brilliant engineering solution for loading and unloading, so the maze of roads did seem to result in getting on and off pretty fast.
The journey through the tunnel was short (25 minutes) and generally uneventful. The only issue was the movement of the car in the train, and the movement of other cars when viewed from your car. Everything was bobbing around, making it quite a sea-sick rich environment. We just looked down at phones or other entertainment and avoided watching the sick-inducing movements.
Once off the train we quickly found the autoroute which took us to Reims, which was something like 2.5 hours on a double laned road at 130km/h with little traffic. It might have cost us around £20 in tolls but it was worth it for the ease of the journey.
Before finding the hotel we had a stop to make – our first motoring-themed location. Reims-Geaux is the site of an old racing circuit, with the grandstands and pit stops either side of what is now a regular road. The site went out of business in 1972 when it ran out of money, but the buildings are beautifully and eerily still there, and free to explore. They’re in remarkably good, if not faded, shape. Fascinating place, and a bit of a mecca for motorsport fans. Even Jo enjoyed the surprise stop (honestly!)
Then onto the hotel in the centre of Reims, where we dropped the bags at the hotel and then parked the car in its own snug bed for the night, in a private space nearby. Hotel rooms was nice, even if the tap wasn’t attached to the sink. I particularly liked the magazine rack next to the toilet, even if the magazine in it didn’t feel like the right kind.
We walked into Reims to find lunch, but found cakes, then wandered to the cathedral of Notre Dame. Pretty big place, with stained glass of various ages as some was lost during WW2 bombing.
Since it was Sunday, very little was open, so we decided to head back to the hotel for a rest before returning into the centre for dinner. We found a French restaurant which served only duck dishes, which we really liked despite it feeling quite modern and not as traditional as most French establishments (which were mostly closed!) We shared foie gras, then I had a minced duck burger and Jo had half a duck breast (which we decided was actually what we’d call a duck breast, but because it has two the French call it a half). With that, back to the hotel and bed.
The plan for today was to visit the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 exhibition at the Natural History Museum. We’ve not been to the museum for many years, but it’s always enjoyable – with the bonus of the wildlife photography this visit. We headed off to the tube, alighting at South Kensington.
We arrived at the museum just before opening which meant the first 2 minutes inside were quiet. That didn’t last long.
First stop was the photography exhibition – around 100 pictures were on show, across various categories. Needless to say many were extremely good. Our favourites were “Alpine Dawn” and “Out of the Darkness” (Keith), and “Fractal Forest” and “Caught in the Headlights” (Jo).
We then had a look at the dinosaurs, before visiting the Darwin building where 25km of shelves contained jars containing specimens taken from around the world; some we found dated back to the 18th Century.
Lunch. Italian. Lasagne and chicken salad…with chips.
After lunch we left London behind and headed across the QE2 bridge across the Thames estuary before heading down to Folkestone where we were staying for the night. We were offered “welcome cake” on arrival, so took a slice up to the room. Having had a big lunch we opted for a light tea – M&S sushi, salad, fruit and yoghurt.
The day finally arrived. The best thing about packing the car was that I got to do it myself, and had most of the day to do it. So everything was packed correctly and efficiently, I could take my time to tesselate bags to maximise use of space, and I wasn’t trying to do it with 3 minutes to spare before I had to leave. Excellent.
I picked up Jo from school and we set off to our first stop, staying overnight with friends who live near to London in Woodford Green. That meant travelling along the M62 and then the M1, before a short drive through a very dark Epping Forest.
The M62 was fine at around 4pm, and surprisingly the M1 wasn’t too bad either despite hitting Sheffield around 5pm and Luton around 6pm. The M25 was typically unpleasant, with lots of stop-start traffic, idiots driving way to close to each other, the odd car weaving in and out of lanes at double the speed of everyone else, and cars pulling in front of trucks causing them to emergency brake.
We arrived at just after 7pm, somewhat miraculous timing given we were travelling on a Friday night. I’ll take that. Thai takeaway and staying up until midnight talking, and we were ready for bed.
Why day zero? Because the original plan saw us drive straight from home to Dover until we were invited to stay and visit something special on the Saturday morning…..
The starting point for this trip was the basic premise that we wanted to drive to the mountain passes in and around the Swiss Alps. Seemed like a simple goal.
A bit of research later and the route began to take shape – channel tunnel, across France by the quickest route, top of the Black Forest, down to the Swiss border near Basel, a big car museum in France, Lake Lucerne, then two days and 600km to traverse 9 mountain passes in Switzerland, Austria and Italy, a glacier, another mountain pass, before a quick stop in Lichenstein, a stop at Lake Constance, then onto Stuggart to the Porsche factory for a tour, then further into Germany before heading back to the tunnel via Belgium.
The route was then broken up into sensible chunks, a couple of rest days added, and accommodation booked. Then detailed routes were planned. Big spreadsheet time.
Routes were planned with Google Maps using route waypoints first, then using the Michelin Via planner which helps with cost of tolls and fuel to get an idea of what we’d expect to pay and where.
Then onto what we’d need to take. With 7 countries, each with different requirements in terms of equipment, and the time of year we realised winter tyres were needed – when there’s snow on the ground or it’s less than 7 degrees Celsius you have no real choice.
Finally emissions stickers and motorway vignettes. I could find no single source of information covering all countries, so had to do a lot of research to check I had ordered what I needed. In total, I needed 7 different physical stickers and electronic permits. They ranged from country-wide to city-specific. Crazy. Though I’m still not sure I have them all!
