Late November last year I had some clients to visit - one in Salzburg, one in Linz (about an hour and a half from Salzburg), one in Innsbruck and one in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Id usually fly, but as the clients were relatively close together I decided to drive, bloody glad I did too. I did consider visiting another couple near Bologna but didnt bother, almost wish I had now ...........
I flew into Salzburg and picked up my trusty steed - Id asked for something a bit nice, unfortunately all 320d's and E Class Mercs were gone so I got this: (excuse crap pic)
A Mercedes. C200. Diesel. On winter tyres. Daaaaamn.
Got in the car and realised that actually a) it was a pretty nice place to be and b) it had 122km on it from new. Furry muff, I can live with that.
Anyway, had the meeting in Salzburg and headed off to Linz, hoping to see some great scenery - unfortunately as soon as I was out of town the fog came down and I couldnt see much past my three point star all the way. Sad times, started to wonder whether this driving lark was a good idea after all.
I had the next day off so wandered round Linz, headed to Salzburg for some lunch, then caned onward toward Innsbruck where I had a meeting the next day. This is where I realised that driving was the right choice - about 15 km outside of Salzburg the satnav took me off the main road and up through some crazy mountain pass, I thought it had to be wrong but apparently this is the main road between the two. You also go into Germany and onto the Autobahn - I only knew this as the little speed limit sign on the satnav disappeared. Oh, and the 5 series in front of me booted it up to about 145 as soon as he got on there
Autobahns are very cool, but my main impression was how bad it made the driving here look - despite doing 120 odd, there was no sudden braking, no tailgating, no pissing about - when we reached slower moving traffic everything slowed down, got past it and sped back up again, no dramas. If we didnt have speed limits here it would be absolute carnage within hours, guaranteed. I also noticed that their discipline when there was a limit was impeccable, as was lane discipline when overtaking etc. we could learn a lot from our sausage loving cousins.
The next day was quite simply epic. I woke up to a view like this:
had a great meeting then set out for Ljubljana, a 5/6 hour drive at best. The fastest route was back on the Autobahn again but this was why I was driving, so picked a route over the Alps, put the Italian Job Original Soundtrack on the stezza (surely the only choice?) and headed for the hills. Well, mountains anyway. On days like theeeese, lala la la la etc.
First bit of the journey is Austrian Autobahn, massive wide roads sweeping through mountain valleys with absolutely no traffic on them. Then it goes into Italy, where its exactly the same except no-one pays any attention to the speed limits, and the road signs are in Italian. I stopped and took a pic, it all looked like this:
IT ALL LOOKED LIKE THAT. ALL OF IT.
Then it got crazy, Id left the Autobahn/Autostrada and started heading up into the mountains proper. Its difficult to explain just how good this next 4-5 hours was - the roads are in excellent condition, with literally no trafffic (I was seeing another car every 15 minutes or so), absolutely stunning scenery, continuous 90-180 degree corners with short straights inbetween and the odd beautiful little town (where I didnt see any people either). There was a little snow on the verges but the roads were clear, blissful.
I made a video to try and get some of how awesome it was across, imagine 4 hours of this - please, no pisstaking, Im driving one handed while holding a cameraphone in a diesel Merc C class with failing brakes (by this point) and snow tyres - it wasnt long after this I had start using the gear selector thing on the autobox to slow down as my brakes were knackered
Sadly the Italian Job Soundtrack had run out by then so the accompanying music is rather more dubious, Id suggest turning it down TBH:
http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s...=VIDEO0052.mp4
The route I took (which Ill definitely take again) was as follows:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msi...696abb4dc77d4d
On that last day I think I crossed the German/Austrian/Swiss border something like 10 times, sadly I didnt once get asked "Verr are ze papers" even once though
I was driving for 6 hours but at no point was I anything other than totally ecstatic - I kept coming round corners and just laughing to myself at what was up ahead, knowing there was hours of it to come as well. If I didnt have a flight booked from Ljubljana Id have doen it again on the way back
Anyone fancy joiningf me for the next one in late April then??