Now, this is the real reason we made this trip. Sure, picking up the BMW 335 in Munich was fun….and driving on the autobahn was cool….but Stelvio is supposed to be the best driving road in the world.
We woke up early in the morning after having eating a great dinner in Garmisch, consisting of lots of hefeweizen and schnitzel the night before. It was not the nicest morning, with it a bit cold, foggy, and raining.
Maybe not the best day to set out to drive a very challenging, twisting, great road at the top of a mountain, but we set out anyway to go see what it was like. We jumped in the car and set the iDrive navigation to bring us to Stelvio…and we were off.
We ended up re-tracing a few of our steps from the previous day, but the navigation eventually got us on the a main’ish road headed south. We were slowly rising up, going higher in to the mountains and seeing more and more beautiful views of the country side.
Eventually, we got high enough that we cleared the fog and rain. About this time we realized we were getting close to Stelvio. The Nav brought us in Switzerland on a road with lots of switchbacks covered in gravel. Let me repeat that….the road was very high up and covered in gravel. This was not particularly good, both from a paint protection standpoint and a life protection stand point.
Road in Switzerland covered in gravel.
But nevertheless we pressed on and made it to Stelvio.
Now, for future reference we wouldn’t recommend following your navigation if you are trying to make it to Stelvio from Garmish. We escaped the twisty gravel road with our lives and found ourselves on the south side of the pass(not far…maybe a mile or two from the top). Once there we stopped at the top for a moment and looked around, but then drove down the north side of the pass. The road itself is slightly wide enough for two cars to pass by each other. Each part of the road is maybe 100 yards long before you turn 180 degrees and go down the next length. There were a few times where we got up to maybe 90-100 mph,, but if we did it was only for a second, as the road was pretty packed when we were there. We made it down to the bottom of the north side and pulled over next to some cut trees and took in the scenery for a while.
After talking for a while we decided we should get back in the car and go back up to the top. Especially before a buss or two got in front of us that we saw coming. Yes, that right a buss on Stelvio pass. Really we were kind of surprised by this and the general population of people and vehicles. We had kind of expected it to be like the goodwood festival of speed but relocated to Stelvio (you know Ferrari’s, Lambo’s, etc….) but though there were a few hot cars and such it turned out our car was almost the most exotic there. Mostly the roads were packed with bicycles, motorcycles, and VW Lupos.
I mention the Lupo because on our way back up the north face, there was a VW Lupo driver behind us at a point that kept honking and getting angry and trying to pass us. You see, I mentioned there was a lot of traffic. So at times we could only do a few miles an hour. Mr. Lupo did not seem to understand this problem so our solution was to slow way down and let some space grow between us and the cars in front….Mr Lupo especially didn’t like this. So about the time that the space of two switch backs had grown between us and the vehicles ahead of us (so maybe 200-300 yards….) he tried to pass us. At this point we downshifted and hit the gas and had some fun really loading up the suspension around the corners….but all too quickly we caught up to traffic in front of us, and eventually Mr. Lupo caught up, still mad at the speed everyone was traveling. But none the less we again reached the top of Stelvio pretty quickly.
At the top of Stelvio we got out to take in the scenery some more and have some great bratwurst and sauerkraut sandwiches. Probably one of the best sandwiches we have ever have….and something we haven’t been able to reproduce at home. At this point it was around 3-4 in the afternoon and we realized we had about another 4 hour drive ahead of us to make it to Monte Carlo, our destination for the night. So, we set out and went down the south side of Stelvio which was probably even more fun than the north side. There was a lot less traffic and a bit more space between switchback which really allowed us to exploit the car and road.
After a while we met up with the autostrada and got to kick it up in to a high gear and rock on towards Monaco….but that’s a story for another time. Well the next time….see you again at www.eastbounddown.com for the next installment.
Oh, here are some pictures and Top Gear’s take on Stelvio:
Edwards gets 3 race probation
F1 - Burn Baby Burn
Carl Edwards Intentionally Wrecks Brad Keselowski
I love the pictures. I am also impressed you never drove over the edge. The Nav pic is incredible.