Porsche Europe

Five nights from Munich through the Austrian and Italian Alps, guided, a thousand kilometres in a Porsche 911 with the car supplied.

The daily distances are the sign of a well-planned convoy tour. Three hundred and ninety kilometres on the big pass day, then a hundred and sixty, then two hundred and ten, which leaves time to stop, eat properly and use the hotels rather than merely sleep in them.

The 911 is collected at a workshop in Munich, and the first day runs south into the Tirol to the Interalpen-Hotel. The Timmelsjoch follows at 2,509 metres into South Tyrol, with a coffee stop at Reschensee, where a church tower stands out of the water above a village flooded for a reservoir in 1950, and a night at the Quellenhof. A shorter day of passes reaches Solden, then the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, Austria’s great toll climb to 2,504 metres, with a helicopter flight over the peaks and spa time at the Laschenskyhof. Herrenchiemsee Palace closes the driving, Ludwig II’s unfinished answer to Versailles on an island in the Chiemsee, before the return to Munich.

The Porsche 911 for the tour, five-star hotels on half board, the fuel, the motorway tolls, the parking, the helicopter flight, VIP nightclub entry and the airport transfer on the final morning are all included; flights and personal extras are not. Late June to September is the window, since both the Timmelsjoch and the Grossglockner close in winter. Six days with the car, the fuel and the tolls all covered is an unusually complete package: the only thing left to pay for on the road is lunch. The helicopter day is the one guests remember, and it falls on the Grossglockner, which is the right place for it.