Tour de Course

Introduction

We'd run out of new ground todiscover in the Alps and the Dolomites. Every pass worth driving had beendriven twice already, most of them three or four times over. We had to findsomething new, and after some deliberation, we settled on Corsica.

Corsica isn't really an island withmountains on it, it's a mountain that happens to have the sea around it. That'salso exactly why it's been hosting the Tour de Corse since 1956, a rally sorelentlessly twisty it earned the nickname the "10,000 Turns Rally,"and one of the very few WRC rounds run entirely on tarmac rather than gravel orsnow. It was part of the World Rally Championship from the very first season in1973 through to 2008, and there's a local joke that the longest straight on thewhole island is the runway at Ajaccio airport. None of us had even been there,reachable only by ferry, with a reputation among drivers for some of the mostdemanding tarmac in Europe. Getting there and back would take the better partof nine days and take in France, Italy, and Austria along the way, but that wasrather the point.

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Day 1: Sedan to the Auvergne

We gathered at the Kyriadin Sedan, a fairly basic budget hotel, but it did the job, just over the Frenchside of the Belgian border and an easy meeting point for everyone convergingfrom different directions. There was no dinner service that night either, so itwas out into town hunting for food. We ended up at a Chinese place, decentenough, just not quite what any of us had been hoping for on the eve of a triplike this. None of that mattered much. The adventure was about to start.

We had a ferry to catch and a lot ofground to cover before it, but the approach never changes: no motorways,because a motorway is where driving goes to die. Even an unremarkable stretchof French country lane is a thousand times better than any stretch ofAutoroute, and that's worth more than the time it costs. The route ran souththrough Champagne and Burgundy into the Auvergne, 610 kilometres of it, quietD-roads doing what they do best.

The one proper stop of the day was L'Aventure Michelin in Clermont-Ferrand,the city where the company was founded in 1889 and still headquartered today.Housed in a renovated early 20th century workshop on the old Cataroux factorysite, 2,000 square metres tracing everything from the first detachable bicycletyre in 1891 through to Michelin's years in Formula 1 between 1977 and 2001.Bibendum, the Michelin Man, got his own corner too, created in 1898 and stillone of the most recognised logos anywhere.

The day ended somewhere elseentirely: Château de Codignat in Bort-l'Étang, a genuine15th century castle turned Relais & Châteaux hotel, one Michelin star inthe restaurant, dinner cooked by chef Mathieu Barbet. Quite the contrast withthe Kyriad the night before.

Route facts: Sedan, France to Bort-l'Étang, France · 611 km · L'AventureMichelin, Château de Codignat

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Day 2: Codignat to Toulon

We left the castle behind for asecond long transit day, on paper one of the best routes of the entire trip,500 kilometres south through the Massif Central, past Issoire and down theeastern edge of the Cévennes through Langogne, Villefort, Génolhac, and Alès,before dropping through Nîmes and along the coast past Marseille and Aubagneinto Provence towards Toulon. Still avoiding the motorway wherever the mapallowed it, and normally that route alone would have been worth the whole day.What we didn't know leaving Bort-l'Étang that morning was that we were drivingstraight into one of the most violent storm systems the south of France wouldsee all year, and we'd see precisely none of it.

It built through the day, the skyturning a bruised, greenish grey that made it obvious something serious was coming.I have never in my life driven through a downpour like that one. It neverstopped, it just kept going. I kept hoping we'd outrun it eventually, but theentire day was just pouring down, mile after mile. We watched our speed all dayand never once exceeded 80. My wipers were on their fastest setting, I wasdoing maybe 30 kilometres an hour through the worst of it, and I still couldn'tsee a thing. At one point I watched a car aquaplane off the road right next tome. We found out afterwards just how bad it actually was, Météo-France recorded92.7 millimetres of rain in two hours over Toulon that evening. The Pont-du-Lasdistrict a few kilometres from where we were driving took the worst of it,streets turned into rivers, underground garages submerged, cars swept away inthe current. The city was later officially declared a natural disaster zone forthe flooding.

We made it to the port for ourovernight ferry to Bastia, thoroughly frazzled but in one piece, and on time.The crossing itself went off without a hitch, though it was hardly the pride ofthe fleet and the car deck had us squeezed in nose to tail. After the day we'dhad, nobody was complaining.

Route facts: Bort-l'Étang, France to Toulon, France · 503 km · Stormcrossing, overnight ferry to Bastia

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Day 3: Bastia to Porto-Vecchio

We were woken early on the ferry asit approached port, the cabin still dark, Bastia coming into view through cloudthat hadn't quite decided whether to clear. Corsica wastes no time getting tothe point, within a few kilometres of leaving the port the road was alreadyclimbing into the interior, and it stayed that way for most of the day.

The route strung together passesrather than towns at first. Col de Santo Stefano at 368 metres came first, astrategically important crossing between the Nebbio and the coastal plainthat's seen more than one battle fought over it. Then Col de San Colombano at 692 metres, the ruins ofa 13th century fortress watching over the pass from above, once the strongholdof the Marquises of Massa and Corsica.

Before Corte, a detour up the Asco Valley on the D147,one of the most dramatic drives on the island and not remotely on the way toanywhere we needed to be, which was rather the point. Thirty two kilometreseach direction, narrow and unrelenting, following the river up through a gorgecarved into the rock towards Monte Cinto, Corsica's highest peak at 2,706metres. Sharp bends, high drop offs, and barely enough width in places for twocars to pass. We stopped in Asco village itself for a look at the 15th centuryGenoese bridge arching over startlingly emerald water, then carried on almostto Haut-Asco, the old ski station at 1,422 metres that marks the end of theroad, before turning around and dropping back down to rejoin the route.

One more pass on the way into Corte:Col de San Quilico at 559 metres, the saddle thatseparates the Ponte-Leccia basin from the Corte basin, quieter and lessdramatic than what came before but a fitting last gateway into the old capital.

The route ran inland to Corte, theold capital of Corsica, a citadel perched on a rock outcrop above the townthat's served as a symbol of Corsican independence since the 18th century. Fromthere the road climbed on to Vizzavona, at 906 metres the highest railwaystation on the island and the halfway point of the GR20, one of Europe'stoughest long distance hiking trails, forest thick enough on either side of theroad to make it feel like driving through a tunnel of green.

South of Vizzavona the road held itsline straight down the island's spine, over the Col de Verde at 1,289metres, one of Corsica's four grand cols alongside Vizzavona, Vergio, andBavella, before continuing through the interior hills towards Zonza anddropping away east to the coast and into Porto-Vecchio. The Aiguilles deBavella were visible off to the west for stretches of it, jagged andunmistakable, close enough to know exactly what we were missing by not turningoff for them, but the day's schedule didn't allow for the detour.

Porto-Vecchio itself, where HôtelLe Mistral gave us somewhere to finally stop and take stock. Corsicahad arrived exactly as advertised.

Route facts: Bastia, Corsica to Porto-Vecchio, Corsica · 369 km · Col deSanto Stefano, Col de San Colombano, Asco Valley, Col de San Quilico, Corte,Vizzavona, Col de Verde

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Day 4: Porto-Vecchio to Galeria

If Day 3 was about mountain passes,Day 4 was about the coast, the classic run up Corsica's west side that everydriving guide puts at the top of the list. For once the reputation undersoldit.

We climbed briefly through the hillsabove Sartène, granite houses stacked up a hillside that's barely changed incenturies, Prosper Mérimée once called it the most Corsican of Corsican towns.Down to Propriano, along the Gulf of Valinco through Olmeto, then west toAjaccio, Napoleon's birthplace and Corsica's busiest city by a wide margin.Finding parking took the better part of forty minutes, every space alreadytaken, and we ended up scattered across half the city, each car fending foritself before regrouping on foot. For 80,000 people it felt a lot closer to amajor metropolis than expected.

North of Ajaccio the coast road runsthrough Cargèse, a town founded by Greek refugees in the 17th century thatstill has its own Greek Catholic church, before the reason everyone actuallydrives this way: the Calanches de Piana. Not sandstone, despite how it looks,this is red granite, magmatic rock that cooled slowly underground some 250million years ago and has since been carved by wind and sea into spires,arches, and natural cavities rising up to 300 metres straight out of theMediterranean. The colour shifts with the light through the day, ochre atmidday, flaming red and then purple as the sun drops, iron oxide doing what apainter couldn't. UNESCO listed, and the D81 threads a narrow line through themiddle of it for twelve kilometres, tight enough that you're reading the rockface as much as the road, natural arches and odd silhouettes in the stone thatlocals have been naming after monks, dogs, and fortresses for centuries.

On through Porto and up to Galeria,where Hotel Cinque Arcate sits in the Fango Valley,itself a UNESCO biosphere reserve. The hotel's photos oversell it a bit, theplace is showing its age, but the staff were so genuinely friendly it more thanmade up for it. No dinner service on site, so we walked two kilometres down theroad to La Ciucciarella, and it turned out to be the findof the trip so far, proper Corsican wood fired grill, some of the best food anyof us had eaten in a very long time.

Route facts: Porto-Vecchio, Corsica to Galeria, Corsica · 333 km ·Sartène, Ajaccio, Cargèse, Calanches de Piana

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Day 5: Galeria to Livorno

A short driving day by the standardsof this trip, just over 120 kilometres before the road ran out entirely and theferry took over, but a proper last look at Corsica before leaving it behind.

The road ran up past Calvi, itsGenoese citadel perched over the bay, the birthplace, or at least the disputedbirthplace, of Christopher Columbus, no solid proof either way but the town hasnever let that get in the way of a good story. On through the Balagne toSaint-Florent, then a last climb over the Col de Teghime at 536 metres, the only point onthe whole island where you can see both coasts from the same spot, Bastia andthe Tyrrhenian Sea to the east, Saint-Florent and the Agriates desert to thewest. The descent ran straight through Patrimonio, Corsica's oldest and mostrespected wine appellation, vineyards on limestone and clay soil that's beenproducing serious reds, whites, and rosés since long before AOC status made itofficial.

Into Bastia for the ferry toLivorno, and this one had clearly seen better days, decades better by the lookof it. The sea itself was calm enough, but the ship had a lean to one side thatnever corrected itself the entire crossing, just enough to have all of usquietly clocking the nearest emergency exit and walking the corridors at anangle. Nobody from the crew said a word about it, no announcement, noexplanation, which was somehow the most unsettling part of the whole fourhours.

We landed at HotelMediterraneo, a straightforward business hotel barely fivekilometres from the ferry terminal, open since 1964 and unmistakably built forconferences rather than road trips. No dinner service, and no agreement amongthe group on where to go instead, there was a McDonald's directly across theroad, and after the day we'd had, sacrilege or not, half the group wolfed itdown without a second thought while the rest of us went looking for a properItalian trattoria instead. Both sides came back entirely satisfied with theirchoice.

Route facts: Galeria, Corsica to Livorno, Italy · 124 km driving + ferrycrossing · Calvi, Col de Teghime, Patrimonio

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Day 6: Livorno to Ferrara

North out of Livorno, past Pisa andthrough Lucca, then up into the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, the morning still wetfrom overnight rain. Even though we weren't pushing hard, more playing thananything else, we came round a bend to find the Carabinieri parked up by theroadside, waving us down. They were friendly enough once they'd stopped us, butfirm. Neither side spoke the other's language well, but "moltopericoloso" needed no translation, delivered with a stern look that madethe point better than any fine could have. Point taken, pace adjusted, wecarried on.

Then over the Passo della Collina and the legendary Passo della Futa at 903metres before dropping towards Bologna. This stretch is part of the old MilleMiglia route, the same roads Enzo Ferrari and Tazio Nuvolari raced on inperiod, endless long sweepers tightening into hairpins as the road climbs,exactly the kind of road that makes you forget you're supposed to be somewherelater that day. At the top of the Futa we stopped for lunch at Da Jolanda inTraversa, run for sixty years now almost entirely by women, four sisters whoopened it in 1964 and kept it in the family ever since, one of them, Elvira,still in the kitchen at 74. A proper institution rather than just somewhere toeat.

Full and happy, we picked the roadback up and dropped down out of the mountains straight into Supercar Valley,the strip of Emilia-Romagna between Modena and Bologna that holds the highestconcentration of car and motorcycle royalty anywhere on the planet: Ferrari,Lamborghini, Maserati, Pagani, Dallara, and Ducati all within a few dozenkilometres of each other. You could spend a week here and still not see it all.We had one afternoon, so we picked one name and went all in: Lamborghini.

Just outside Bologna, in Funo diArgelato, we stopped at the Museo Ferruccio Lamborghini,a private museum unrelated to the corporate one in Sant'Agata, housed in aformer Lamborghini factory building. Tonino Lamborghini opened it in 2014 totell his father's whole story, not just the cars, 9,000 square metres oftractors, helicopters, marine engines, and everything else Ferruccio ever builtbefore he decided to take on Enzo Ferrari directly. From there a short run westto Sant'Agata Bolognese itself, the actual factory, founded in 1963 and stillthe only place on earth where a Lamborghini is built, the V12 Revuelto line andthe newly introduced Temerario line, its twin turbo V8 hybrid having just takenover from the old naturally aspirated V10, and the MUDETEC museum next doorrounding out as complete a Lamborghini history as anyone could hope to absorbin one afternoon.

The final stretch ran north toFerrara, a UNESCO listed Renaissance city that somehow still doesn't make mostpeople's list of Italian must sees, which is more or less exactly why it'sworth the stop. Right in the middle of it sits the Castello Estense, a propermoated fortress with drawbridges and four corner towers, built in 1385 afterthe Este family decided they needed better protection from their own citizensafter a tax revolt. It stayed the family seat for the next two centuries, andthe dungeons underneath still tell some genuinely dark stories, including thebeheading of a duke's wife and stepson for an affair, later reworked by RobertBrowning into one of his most famous poems.

We stayed at Hotel Touring, close enough to the castle that itwas the first thing visible from the room, barely 150 metres from the moat.

Route facts: Livorno, Italy to Ferrara, Italy · 289 km · Museo FerruccioLamborghini, Lamborghini factory (Sant'Agata Bolognese)

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Day 7: Ferrara to Assling

North through the Veneto, pastRovigo and Padua, before the road properly begins climbing towards theDolomites at Belluno. The character of the day changes entirely here, flat PoValley farmland giving way to sheer limestone walls in what feels like a handfulof kilometres.

We didn't stop at the Vajont Dam,just outside Longarone, but it's worth knowing it's there. On the night of 9October 1963 a landslide off Monte Toc crashed into the reservoir behind it,sending a wave of water more than 200 metres high over the top of the dam anddown into the valley. Longarone was almost entirely destroyed, roughly 2,000people died in a matter of minutes, and it remains one of the deadliest manmade disasters in history. The dam still stands, still empty, and it's a short,sobering detour if you're ever passing through.

From there the road pushed onthrough Pieve di Cadore and Auronzo, the gateway town for the Tre Cime diLavaredo, three limestone towers that are as close to a symbol of the Dolomitesas any single formation gets. We never went anywhere near them properly, thatwould have meant a detour west towards passes like the Gardena, but on a clearday they're visible from a genuine distance, unmistakable even as a backdroprather than a destination. They were calling us, more or less, but Austria waswaiting and the itinerary didn't have room for the detour. The route continuedover the Passo di Monte Croce Comelico,through Sesto and its own valley, before crossing into Austria at Sillian andfinishing the day at Assling.

We stayed at FamilienhotelMoos-Alm, 1,000 metres up on the Schlossberg above Lienz, reachableby road or by the same cable car the skiers use in winter, with the LienzDolomites laid out across the whole view from the terrace. It's a ski hotel byhistory, but East Tyrol sits low enough and far enough south that reliablenatural snow has become a genuine problem, and the whole mountain has quietlyrebuilt itself around mountain biking instead. The same Schlossbergbahn gondolaand the old chairlift that used to carry skiers now haul bikes straight up themountain fitted with dedicated carriers, and trails named after East Tyroleanriders like Peter Sagan and Alban Lakata start right where the ski runs used tobe the main draw.

Route facts: Ferrara, Italy to Assling, Austria · 324 km · Vajont Dam,Tre Cime di Lavaredo region, Passo di Monte Croce Comelico

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Day 8: Assling to Breitenbach am Inn

The longest day of the whole trip,430 kilometres of it, and easily one of the most varied. Out of Assling eastinto Carinthia, and almost immediately a stop that had nothing to do with theday's driving plan but everything to do with why we were all there in the firstplace: Gmünd. This unassuming Carinthian town is where Porsche's design officerelocated in 1944 after Stuttgart came under bombing, setting up in the woodensheds of an old sawmill. It's where the very first cars to carry the Porschename were hand built between 1944 and 1950, chassis number 356 020 among them,the eighth oldest surviving Porsche in the world. The original shed is stillthere, and just up the road the Porsche Automuseum Helmut Pfeifhoferholds the finest private collection of that early history anywhere, including agenuine Gmünd built 356 and Austria's only ever police spec 911.

From there a detour up the Maltavalley, and this road alone would have justified the trip. 14.4 kilometres,narrow, threading through six rock tunnels blasted straight into themountainside, waterfalls seemingly around every single corner, the whole valleygenuinely earning its nickname, the Valley of the Rushing Waters. It climbs tothe Kölnbrein Dam, Austria's tallest at 200 metres, sittingat nearly 1,900 metres above sea level. There's a glass floored viewingplatform, the Airwalk, that hangs off the dam wall over the valley below, andwe went out onto it. Genuinely stomach churning, looking straight down throughyour own feet at a 200 metre drop with nothing but glass in between.

Back down and north on the B99, overthe Katschberg Pass at 1,641metres, one of the very roads Ferdinand Porsche's own engineers used as a testtrack back when Gmünd was still their base, a nice, unplanned callback to themorning's stop. On to the Radstädter Tauern Pass at 1,738 metres, acrossing that's been in continuous use since Roman times, the Emperor Claudiushaving completed the first proper road over it roughly 2,000 years ago. Moderntraffic mostly takes the Tauern Autobahn tunnel underneath these days, whichleft the old pass road refreshingly quiet, sweeping curves through the NiedereTauern past Obertauern, one of Austria's better known ski resorts, quiet enoughin September to just enjoy the road for what it is.

From there the roads settled into along transit stretch north and west through Salzburg and into Tyrol, the day'sdistance finally catching up with us by the time we reached Gasthof Schopper in Breitenbach am Inn, a proper family runGasthof with mountain views and a beer garden that did exactly what was neededafter 430 kilometres.

Route facts: Assling, Austria to Breitenbach am Inn, Austria · 431 km ·Gmünd (Porsche birthplace), Kölnbrein Dam, Katschberg Pass, Radstädter TauernPass

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Day 9: Breitenbach am Inn to Home

The last day, and by far thelongest, nearly 700 kilometres of it, and in hindsight far too many for asingle day behind the wheel.

First, MotorworldMünchen in Freimann, a former Deutsche Bahn locomotive repair hall,185 metres long and under monument protection, converted in 2021 into 75,000square metres of automotive everything. More than 30 of the world's mostexclusive car brands under one roof, 111 glass boxes holding privately ownedclassics and supercars across four levels, and among the permanent exhibits,genuinely, Elvis Presley's BMW 507 and the Nissan Skyline from the Fast and theFurious films. Free entry, open every day of the year. We had lunch at one ofthe restaurants on site before getting back in the cars.

Then south to Stuttgart for one morestop, the Porsche Museum, a fittinglast museum for a trip that had already taken in the Michelin, FerruccioLamborghini, and Porsche's own birthplace in Gmünd along the way.

From there it was Autobahns theentire way, Germany, then the Netherlands, right through to the centre of thecountry, one continuous stretch with nothing else planned in between. It's notsomething I would recommend. Every stop we build into a normal day, a museum, apass, a decent lunch, exists for two reasons: it's genuinely fun, and it forcesregular breaks that keep everyone sharp behind the wheel. Safety and enjoyment,same coin. Push 700 kilometres in a single day, especially the last day of anine day trip when everyone's already tired from a week of driving adds real,unnecessary risk from fatigue exactly when the temptation is to just get itover with. We've changed how we plan the last day on every trip since.

Nine days, six countries, the worststorm any of us had ever driven through, roads we'd never forget in Corsica,and more car museums than we could properly keep track of by the end. The tripwas over. But the roads never really end.

Route facts: Breitenbach am Inn, Austria to home, Netherlands · 691 km ·Motorworld München, Porsche Museum Stuttgart

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