So in we dived off the precipice and discovered it all for the first time. In we upped the ante and went well over the top with miles chock full of glamorous locations. In , the general agreement was to pull back a little and create a simpler smaller tour with less seat time focusing on good driving roads rather than far away headline destinations.
Our original plan was to have a kind of city tour around Germany - Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Munich - but finding guaranteed good roads in the North wasn't easy and I soon decided to scrap that plan and concentrate back around the good old Alps. We'd enjoyed Austria hugely last year and had all agreed that its giant sized, super rapid roads were ideal for the bigger water cooled and GT cars.
With famous destinations to be kept at a minimum it made sense to put just one in there, namely Vienna, which seemed to represent a suitable eastern U-turn point. Once I had that basic skeleton in place the rest was fairly easy to plot out; insertion to Baden Baden, a run through the black forest and then eastwards through southern Germany and North Eastern Austria. Turn around at Vienna and head back down to Italy with a last fling through Stelvio and a couple of Swiss passes.
At around miles this was a little more mileage than our first trip but with around miles per day on non-Motorway days and approximately hours seat time average, way less than last years overwhelming marathon. Sadly, we had a few regulars unable to make it this year but then in their place we had some new blood, a couple of new chaps who certainly added much to this trip.
As for the cars, they seem to be getting more modern as the years go on. Just one aircooled C2 this time with us just up until Vienna. Here's the full route. Initially there was an idea to loop back up through central Austria through the incomparable Turracher Strasse and then on toward the black forest again but whilst this may have made for a shorter trip, it would have meant more repetition.
