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European road trip... completed it mate.
Essentially this trip was a bunch of mini city breaks (Strasbourg, Montreux, Piedmont Vineyards, Riomaggiore, Lucca, Bologna, Italian Alps, Heidelberg and Luxembourg) with great food and some amazing driving in between.
The route:
We started out in Warwick and drove to Folkestone to catch the 10.20am crossing which we inevitably missed due to traffic on the M25, great start. Eventually we arrived in Calais at 12.30pm and headed for our first city break Strasbourg. This first drive was quite long as we wanted to get most of north France out of the way in one go. To break up the 6 hours journey we stopped off at Circuit de Reims-Gueux to see the old pits and grandstands and take a couple of photos. From Reims, it was 3 hours plain sailing to Strasbourg.
From Strasbourg, the next stop was Montreux on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. On passing through the Swiss border checkpoint just outside Basel we were welcomed by being forced to buy a Swiss motorway vignette for 40CHF! The rest of the journey to Montreux was very beautiful with amazing scenery of rolling forest covered hills to monstrous cliff-sided mountains right next to the road. Finally, when approaching Montreux, the road began to descend from the hills as it opened out to a lovely view of Lake Geneva straight in front.
After Montreux, we were headed for a vineyard on the hills outside the small town of Alba in the Italian Piedmont region. This was one of the routes I pre-Googled as there were numerous options, all of which would have had breathtaking roads and views. The chosen route was to go straight to the Italian border but avoid the much faster Grand Saint Bernard tunnel and take the Grand Saint Bernard Pass instead. This was fantastic. The first section of road on the way up had some roadworks so there was a few areas of waiting for traffic coming the other way, but from about halfway up the road was brilliant. It was a perfect combination of long sweeping corners and tight cambered hairpins all combined with spectacular views the whole time. We stopped just after the lake at the peak for a nice peaceful lunch with a lovely view. I would advise anyone to take this pass instead of the tunnel as it is simply a better, less busy version of Stelvio.
Next destination was the Cinque Terre national park. They don't allow cars into the town we were staying at, so we decided to leave the car in La Spezia station car park and get the 8 minute train to Riomaggiore. Apparently this was quite a popular plan and we found one of the last spaces in the car park at La Spezia station and were surrounded by foreign plates - mostly German and Dutch - doing the same as us. The drive to La Spezia was reasonably picturesque when not in one of the many tunnels. The road unfortunately was quite busy, twisty (not in a good way) and extremely bumpy, leading to us losing a few wheel weights front and rear (more on this later).
The next stop was Lucca which was only 50 minutes from where we parked in La Spezia. There was nothing particularly special about this route as it was so short and we were trying to get to Lucca early to see the town. Driving into Lucca was interesting as we had to go through one of the 3 entry archways, barely wider than the Z4, and then be super careful not to drive into the ZTL (limited traffic zone) which would have netted a €100 fine!
Bologna was after Lucca and the drive was back to the beautiful rolling tree covered hills of the Italian Tuscan countryside with the occasional tunnel through them. These roads were far smoother than the previous two journeys which the car (and us) were quite thankful for. By this time in the road trip we had reached our furthest from home point and were beginning to head back towards northern Europe. Yet again Bologna had some very strict instructions to get to our car park due to the ZTL which had even more cameras than Lucca apparently!
After Bologna was a small village called Trafoi, in the Italian Alps at the base of the Stelvio pass. This was a route I was very much looking forward to because we drove via the shores of Lake Garda which had some fantastically picturesque roads alongside the lake which were great to drive too! We stopped off at the tiny lakeside village of Navene for a pizza and refreshing swim before continuing along the lake and heading deeper into the Alps. The roads in the Alps were reminiscent of the earlier Grand Saint Bernard Pass with beautiful views and lovely sweeping cliffside turns. We then drove the lower section of Stelvio (without all the hairpins) quite late in the day to reach our hotel in Trafoi, which was also fantastic as there was barely anyone on it at 7pm. We decided not to drive the main Stelvio pass as we've been told so many times that its overcrowded, is essentially just a series of hairpin bends and we would just end up following a slow RV anyway. A group of bikers in our hotel concreted our decision as they went up and down 3 times to try and find a quiet time, but they kept catching slow vehicles and said they wouldn't do it again.
Trafoi to our next stop Heidelberg was a long 6.5 hour journey where the first 2-3 hours were superb with scenic mountain roads leaving the Italian Alps and a lovely section in Austria called the Fern Pass which we luckily managed to hit at lunchtime so it was basically empty! After this we entered Germany, home to the famous Autobahns. Nearly half of our distance to Heidelberg from the German/Austrian border was derestricted, allowing us to burn money in the form of petrol and press on. Unfortunately, because of the lost wheel weights there were some bad vibrations over 120mph so we didn't go for any 155mph attempts despite being overtaken by a couple of Ferraris clearly trying to achieve 200mph+!
Our final mini city break was Luxembourg which was just over 2 hours from Heidelberg on some rather nondescript German Autobahns. By now the car was beginning to develop a few more nuisances (again, more on that later).
After Luxembourg was our long journey back to Warwick, a route that was meant to take around 8 hours door to door. In the end it took us 11 hours because of a long delay for the Eurotunnel at Calais and then yet more traffic on the M25!!
We arrived home at 10pm, 19 days and 2457 miles after setting off.
The car:
Now, the car. Overall, it performed brilliantly. It only needed an oil top up once and barely needed 0.5L. In terms of the wheel weight issue, this was a minor inconvenience but at 70-80mph didn't actually cause too much vibration. However, by Heidelberg the car was beginning to develop a bit of a lumpy acceleration/throttle between 1500 and 2500 rpm. It only seemed to occur when in 1st to 3rd gear when accelerating gently or 4th to 6th when accelerating gently or quickly. At the time I was almost certain it wasn't engine related because when accelerating hard in 1st, 2nd and 3rd the issue wasn't present and the engine pulled like a train, so we carried on and the car got us home.
Yesterday when I went to get the wheels rebalanced they said 3 of the 4 wheels are very slightly buckled, so I can't determine whether the lumpiness is caused by the wheels or something else. If its not the wheels it could be any of the following:
Clutch / Flywheel
Hub and Bearings
Springs and Dampers
Bushes (front lollipop, RTAB, rear arm bushes)
Prop Shaft Donuts / Guibo Bush
Trans / Diff Mounts
Trans / Diff Fluid
Engine Mounts
Subframe Bushes
Axles
Prop Shaft
I will source some new wheels and try to diagnose and fix the lumpiness if its still present.
All in all it was a fantastic trip that I would definitely do again once the buckled wheels and lumpiness is fixed. Really happy with how the car performed despite the minor issues considering its an 18 year old car.
The Photos (sorry there aren't more!)
North West Surrey
:
Again, I am quite glad about this result as I think ET30 would have been just too aggressive in the front and led to a disappearing arch liner.
