Travel The Bucket List

I had originally considered doing a couple of weeks of driving through the Colmar Districts and Bavaria, but changed plans to slow down a little and enjoy the trains.

Yet I still wanted to drive the Black Forest, and chase that Bucket List item, to drive a Sports Car on the Autobahn.

So staying in Strasbourg, I rented an Audi A4 and did 3 days of driving the Colmar Districts, North & South Black Forest, where a return trip down the A8 saw me chase a Porsche in the Audi, to over 200kph.

Very steady, comfortable, but not quite the experience I was hoping for.

 

 

Attempt #2

A week or so later I arrived in Stuttgart to visit the Mercedes & Porsche Museums, and whilst reading the website rhetoric, saw a reference to “Porsche Drive”.  Yep, you can rent a Porsche for an hour, a few hours, a day or longer.

This is one of those instances where being spontaneous did not work. If I knew I could rent a Porsche, I would have made the time to have one for a day, but with little notice, all the 911’s were already booked. A Cayman GTS had an availability for the Saturday late morning, and I locked that in.

 

 

Next day, I had worked out a route on my GPS, and took that with me to check in for my Porsche Drive. I arrived about 40 minutes early, as they suggested a half hour before to run through ID and booking conditions.  At half an hour before, they took me to the garage, and oriented me around the car, highlighting the fact they had fitted winter tyres, so don’t take it over 240kph.  Sorry, say that again ?

They then told me about the Sport and Sport Plus modes, and encouraged me to make use of those.  This was going to be fun. A Car Rental encouraging speed.

So I set myself up and drove out of the garage following the GPS route I had prepared. It was a Saturday at 11am, in Stuttgart. Traffic. Lots of it. When I reached the Autobahn, speed limits were being displayed on the overheads, and there was enough vehicles using the autobahn, that any faster was impossible anyway.

So my Porsche autobahn experience was managing to get to 130kph only; albeit I got to that speed very quickly with a thunderous roar of the engine; but there you go. I wouldn’t have traded it for anything, but disappointed I had not done more research, and booked much more in advance.

Hence the balance of enjoying spontaneous travel, vs squaring away a tight agenda of pre-planned activities; which brings me to

Attempt #3

 

Another week later, I arrive in Munich, and intended to visit the BMW Museum. With the Porsche experience, I did a bit more planning, and chose an M6 Coupe; but when I went to book, an i8 appeared as available; so I quickly confirmed that.

With the Porsche experience, I made the booking for a Tuesday lunchtime to minimise traffic potential, and still encountered some traffic, but when I got on the A9, I got to enjoy what my Bucket List expectation was, a fast drive, in a stunning sports car, on the autobahn.

You only live once, and yes, when I took those speed shots, I had made sure there was nothing in front of me for a while, and coasted back a little after making sure nothing was approaching behind me. Safety first, memory second.