Your favorite route?

[FIATLOVE]

If you had the chance, taking a ultimate ride for 5 days, the ride goes from mid-europe (BeNeLux),5 days ride into alps and back.
So what is a ultimate ride???
Well, we talk about rental cars here, so we have to choose among "lowrange" cars as e.g Merce SLK cab or Porsche 911 996 C2, muahahahha

If some of you guys like touring, please try to give me your choice of route to do in a 4-5 day trip (monday-friday).

Add in (for particular reasons) St.Moritz ((and Julierpass)) :p into the route
Also visit the town of Wilhelm Tell (Luzern), and I really hope to make a tiny trip upto Piz Buin mtns (takes at least 16 hours from St moritz and back)) (this route is recommended by he furious man from Bavaria, aka FeZ :-) (need some aussie air) :love:
In addition add in all routes you see as interesting for you likings.
If we have the time for it (I doubt if we going to see alps), we also want to do a lap at the Green Hell, so please make many route solutions..

Lets say we start at west coast (BENELUX), and the tour is from monday noon to friday noon.
If you have a road-touring plan you want to share, please post it here :)
Also post you plans to stops, places to see and so on.

And hey guys, we are not talking about only one car here ;)
and not only one camera :D

Here is a movie a rec last week, frteom the roads where i learned to drive curves :-)
movie is 50MB Size!! http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/MOV00637.MPG

[FIATLOVE]

and here is a route planner :)

http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/dyn/controller/mapPerformPage;jsessionid=0000SQOSRCRFUWQXVQ3OZKSC OPI+v0t5qvhg?act=RefineToMap&rnd=1081820175680&E_mg=210504105lS20J304104033139173716MAPB2C1r103gb r542000131b1109000000240000cVGFuZ3N0ZWR00aRC0yMjg4 OQ001100&stat=ambiguous_map&strChoice=1

:Peace:

[chris]

It'd be fun to recreate the last Top Gear "race" to Oslo in Norway. But with a Mclaren F1. :) Or an F355 if you insist on cheaper machinery. :)

As for rental cars, IIRC, you can hardly rent anything fancy to drive to other countries because of theft. I knew someone who wanted to rent SLK and drive to Italy from Germany (Munich), but they wouldn't allow it.

[FeZ]

Because RP seems very slow I was able to find some more detailed info for you (fingers crossed that posting works ;) )

If you plan to start in Benelux there is not much I can recommend there, usually I just pass thru on the Motorway and I dont know much up there ;)

On the other hand if you go down direction Switzerland you are pretty much on route for "the Ring".

It also depends how you want to drive, use the cars handling on twisted roads, or use its power to drive Autobahn as quick as possible ?

I see you already planed Lucerne, very nice little town.
An excellent little hotel right in the middle of the old town is Hotel Magic
http://www.magic-hotel.ch/. Its not cheap (nothing in Switzerland is !!!), but well worth it.

If you plan to stay in Lucerne for some nights it is a great point to start day trips.

One would be, around the Vierwaldstättersee (= lake lucerne), then at the southern end east direction Glarus via the famous "Klaussenpass"
http://www.starswebworx.ch/starsweb/swiss_photo/Glarus.htm

If you want to go to St. Moritz you should definitely take a little detour via Italy and Lake Como, the route around the lake is fantastic.
http://www.initaly.com/regions/lombardy/como.htm

To get there you can go via the San Bernardino Pass (not San Bernhard !!!!) http://www.tourenland.de/paesse/bernadin.htm

Dont have a route planer at hand but this is quite a trip (Lucerne-San Bernardino-Lake Como-Julierpass :love: -St. Moritz). Not sure if this can be done in one day when you try to enjoy the landscape also and not just drive ;) Maybe staying somewhere at Lake Como would be an idea (also very expensive :p )

Oh and here is another tour you may like ;)
http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=35004&goto=nextoldest

[FIATLOVE]

Thank's alot for tips FeZ, that M5 tour was pretty cool, maybe we find some routes to copy from them :)
And the San Bernadino pass, I have read about that before, it's definatly on the list of places to drive & see, big thumb up! (just look at those pics in the link you put into your post, hehehe, piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiins! hehe

I guess tour will start and end in Holland since there is alot of nice rentalcars to ok costs there.
We will have alot of motorway driving from westcoast and towards the alps via Belgium (and back), so in the alps we will try hunt the scenery routes mostly.


A friend is managing a travel agency so we will use cars+hotels from his lists, he will join the tour too, he is making such a tour with rental sportscars possible for us to realize :)
And that with discounts :cool:

I'm looking forward too see the list of cars we can choose among and the list of hotels (towns).
Maybe it would be cool to have 1 sportscar and one sportswagon with a hi-torque diesel in it, we are 4 ppl who go and I know that I will drive more hours than my co-mate because I'm used to do 10 hours rides and he is not (but he is a gang good co driver/ mapreader).

2 sportscars or 1 of each?
What about the BMW X3 with a 3 litre? Or a Merce with a large tdi engine?
Tho I know that 2 of the guys probably will want to drive sportscar all the time, and if they get a Porsche Boxter or 996 it will be hard to beat them at all using a huge car even how much torque it have, and I will not drive a huge car all the days, so maybe we have to use 2 sportscars or else the large car has to be really neat.
Cayenne is maybe a choice to go for, if we can get a deal who allows us drive upto 1000Km daily instead of the ordinary 200Km wich is usual for that car :rolleyes:

Chris; regarding driving rentalcars to other countries; I can understand that some rentalcompanies are afraid send cars to Italy, it's high up on carthefts stats there. Normally I can rent cars all over Europe, using them in any country I want except in certain eastern european countries.
It was actually the owner of the travel agency who recommended us that we should do this tour, go for a dream ride.
Maybe we have to use hotels with guarded parkings when using hicost sportscars, but heck they do exsist don't they? ;)


Thank's again for post and links FeZ, very inspiring to me :)



Mads

[FIATLOVE]

What about this as day 1 transport route?
Then we can start day 2 in the middle of paradise :D
http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/dyn/controller/ItiWGPerformPage?E_wg=210505205lS19J50520405083870 1195ITIWG6f10133gbr0063104h101c101116100z110328500 07aGFndWU000010091141uft100131a101114100x110318500 0ec3QuIG1vcml0eg000011000120111k10111e101711041424 000ec3RyYXNib3VyZw000010091142tc010013010072005204 039.004-1.00110001001001001001001003gbr011&stat=ambiguous_iti&pim=true&dtmDeparture=23%2F07%2F2005&strDestChoice=0&x=22&y=14

[FeZ]

I wonder why you are avoiding "die Autobahn" :D

But maybe you are right depending on the time of year you may encounter massive traffic jams, although on a Monday it should not be too bad.

Another tip I can give you, fill the car up in Luxembourg, fuel prices there are very low compared to its neighbor countries.

If you can avoid the BMW X3 do it, from what I heard its a horrible car that is useless offroad, and uncomfortable onroad :D The X5 is so much better.

Cayenne may be a good choice for a long trip, but I would say go for a real sportscar if you have the chance :)

About rental car policies. I dont think Italy is a problem, especially northern Italy. Rome and south may be a different matter. Also some friend of mine always uses rental cars when he has to go to Poland, his words "Are you insane I dont want MY car to get stolen" :D

Whatever you do, wherever you go, have fun :Peace:

[chris]

X5 and X3 are both not very good. A Cayenne is a better bet. Even better if it is a Turbo. (the acceleration!)

Maybe the forthcoming ML63 AMG might be even better - with 375kW@6800rpm, 630Nm@5200rpm (but with 500Nm@2000rpm) and 7200 rev-limit. :eek: And that from a 6.3L V8.

[FIATLOVE]

While waiting, here is more videos from the offshore roads of Tvedestrand, the roads I learned to drive car. This is ca 250 Km south of Oslo

http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/MOV00484.MPG

http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/MOV00486.MPG

Well, after parking car and then using boat for 5 minutes this road brings me to Sand-island, the family summerhouse
http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/MOV00486.MPG

http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/DSC00596.JPG

View from bedroom window, checking weather (rain) http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/DSC00513.JPG


Then the homerun;
http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/MOV00637.MPG (linked earlier in first post..)
http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/MOV00638.MPG
and
http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/MOV00639.MPG

Hope you like it, I do, every time!!!
:)

[FIATLOVE]

I almost forgot the best part &(

Here is 3 minutes walk from hut, and this is MY property :)
The pic aims towards North Sea and Holland/England, this is the outer shores of south Norway :love: :love: :love:
http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/DSC00550.JPG
And, this is the heart of off-shore racing in Norway, here you find the roughest courses :D 8)~

The place I stand taking the picture is the place the guide mens use to stand and watch for tall-ships back 100+++ years ago (it's a very rough heavy water sailing into these fjords), this was the best place for toll-men and guides to use as watchingpost, guiding the tallships into harbours.

Some of you also have seen pics from a town named Risør. Risør was the main tallship harbour town in old days, and is located ca 20 Km north of this place. So having watchingpost here was a advantage of having post in Risør ;)

Here is a video showing rough-waters, one of the shallow gates into inshores of Risør ( [NO]Deal's boat, Deal's driving, he is local too, hehehehehe)
http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/MOV00840.MPG

The video shows ocean in very CALM mood (it's only few meters deep here, north sea pushing waves onto ground, ground push waves back, it gets pretty rough even when quite shores), and we drive a tiny 26 feets boat, imagine to sail a 80 feeter in here when it's windy &( (I have done that, yeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwww, one time I even steered (shipper), I felt not so cool at that moment!!!)

The video shows a off-inshore gate only 12 meters (36 feets) wide between underwater rocks, and when entry from offshore the last showing underwater-rock (the one when I LOL) on the video is very very very dangerous if you don't know about it. Going opposite direction of what we do, this gate is the very hardest one to entry Risør inshores.

RISØR, RISOER ;
After talking so much about Risør, Risør is a very small village located out to Skagerrak oceans, it was one of the most important towns up here during old days (tall ships)
Risør is definatly the heaviest populated city in Norway with NO-Clan people related to it. [NO]Svim, [NO]Deal, [NO]Boca, [NO]Sim1 and [NO]Head is related to Risør.

Welcome to our kinda paradise! (I will upload more pics V soon), here is a inner fjord video, NO-Deal+ his love and me did a 7 hours trip that day in late July 2005 (last week).
http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/feel-all-right.mpg (the flag you see attached to boat is the Risør flag)

And here is my GG dads ship :) http://no-clan.nett.org/pics/head/2005/DSC00624.JPG (pretty large pic)

[Frank N. O.]

Simply incredible. Both the view, and the narrow streets where they still drive fast and very tight. Btw what is that wonderfully growling engine?

Thanks for sharing the videos and glad you at least had a nice drive. I can't say I've had the same here this summer sadly. Btw did I see a silver 996 Carrera Coupe in one of the last videos? :cool:
What kind of camera did you use btw?

Greetings from the flat south.
Frank

[chris]

Saw a little better than usual this morning, instead of the usual sea of Porsche 911's and BMW M3's, I see a silver Ferrari 612 Scaglietti. Cool! :)

Very hot looking car that seems to disguise its size well.

[FIATLOVE]

Hi Frank :)
The engine is a Fiat 5 cyl 2.0 litre 20V :love:
And yes it's a silver 996 Carrera parked after the bridges into mainland.
My camera is a stillpicture Sony Cybershot DSC-P120, 5,1 Megapixels



Mads