An Alpine Romance with Porsche

Cesar is in his element.

By the time we reached Bormio, I suspected I had fallen in love twice on the same trip. One of those affairs involved a Porsche GT4 RS. The other, fortunately, was with my wife.

The Porsche was the surprise. For years, enthusiast friends had encouraged me to get one. I appreciated their enthusiasm without quite sharing it. I had never driven a Porsche, and the devotion these cars inspired remained something I understood from a distance. When I signed up for the Field Ethos Outrider and Roadcraft Oktoberfest Rallye, I pictured a handsome car, beautiful scenery, and a leisurely drive through Europe.

I had substantially underestimated the driving.

My wife and I arrived in Munich a few days early to celebrate our anniversary. Before the engines and alpine passes, we gave ourselves time to enjoy the city together. There were extraordinary Michelin restaurant dinners and the pleasure of lingering over a meal with nowhere else to be. For someone whose working life is governed by decisions and deadlines, that alone felt like an indulgence.

We wandered through the Viktualienmarkt, which promptly rearranged my opinion of farmers markets. The abundance, the presentation, the care given to the whole experience made the American markets I knew seem modest by comparison. Munich was a lovely beginning: a chance to slow down and enjoy my wife’s company before discovering just how thoroughly the rallye would alter the pace.

Some close friends had joined us for the trip. We met the rest of the group in Munich, and most proved to be lovely company. There is always an element of chance when you commit to traveling with strangers. Here, the shared appetite for adventure gave us an easy place to start.

Then came the GT4 RS.

It is difficult to explain a conversion like this without sounding like the friends I had spent years politely listening to. The sound alone got my attention. The acceleration held it. As the roads grew more demanding, I began to understand the attraction in a way no conversation could have conveyed.

There was a precision to the experience, a feeling of power so closely connected to what my hands and feet were doing that the car became absorbing almost immediately.

The Autobahn gave that power room to stretch. I drove the GT4 RS as fast as I could, and the acceleration was intoxicating. My friends’ enthusiasm was beginning to look entirely reasonable.

The driving was fast and intensely involving. On those twisting mountain roads, the next bend required attention, and the bend after it arrived soon enough. I had expected to admire the Alps through a windshield. Instead, I found myself fully occupied by the road running through them. The business concerns that usually followed me everywhere had very little room to intrude.

Between stretches of driving, the scenery gave us plenty of reason to pause. We travelled from Germany into Austria, through northern Italy and into Switzerland, before returning to Munich. Each country brought views that made the itinerary’s place names feel inadequate. You can read a route on paper and still be entirely unprepared for the scale of what surrounds you when you arrive.

From Munich we headed through Berchtesgaden to Zell am See. The Grossglockner high alpine road took us into the Austrian Alps; later, the Giau and Falzarego passes carried us through the Dolomites near Cortina d’ Ampezzo.

The mountains became an immense presence around the cars, and the roads seemed to keep finding another way through them. By the time we reached the Stelvio and Umbrail loop, my idea of a pleasant European motoring holiday had become something considerably more compelling.

Stelvio, in particular, made sense of the entire proposition. A succession of hairpins, extraordinary mountain scenery, and a car I was only beginning to understand made for the kind of driving I wanted to experience again. I finally understood why my friends spoke about Porsche with such conviction.

The urge to return was already forming before we had finished the route.

The pleasure continued after the cars were parked. The hotels were romantic, the restaurants exceptional, and the transition from a demanding day on the road to a beautiful evening together became one of the great pleasures of the trip. Lunch at Castel Fragsburg, a former hunting lodge above Merano, Italy, belonged naturally in an itinerary that took such care over where we stopped.

Paolo and Alessandro Pietri had put an unmistakable amount of themselves into the journey. You could feel their passion in the roads they chose and in the hotels waiting at the end of them. The Salzburgerhof in Zell am See, Armentarola in the Dolomites, and Bagni Nuovi in Bormio gave each part of the route its own character. Their attention to these places made me appreciate how much judgement goes into creating a trip that feels so effortless to its guests.

Bormio is where the romance caught up with me.

We were there for our anniversary, yet somewhere along the way the celebration had become more intimate than a special dinner or a date on the calendar. Sharing the intensity of the drive, then having time together in such a beautiful setting, made me look at my wife with fresh appreciation. I might have fallen in love with her all over again. There was something almost aphrodisiac about the combination of adrenaline and romance, the way the excitement of the day seemed to follow us into the evening.

There was also the pleasure of being a little ridiculous.

I own a business, and much of my ordinary life requires me to carry myself seriously. People rely on my judgement. Decisions have consequences. On this trip, among close friends and people who were becoming friends, I could relax that posture. I could be goofy, laugh freely, and indulge the sort of immaturity that is much more enjoyable when shared with good company. I had missed having that much room to play.

I have travelled with Outrider many times, and my own appetite for adventure has taken me running with the bulls in Pamplona and on hunts in places far from home. Namibia is next on the horizon. Even with those experiences behind me, this rallye surprised me. I had never encountered quite this combination of demanding driving, beautiful places, and time with my wife and friends.

I am grateful to our friends at Field Ethos Outrider and Roadcraft for putting it together, and to the Pietri brothers for the care they brought to every part of the journey. They gave us a trip I am already determined to repeat each year.

When it ended, I went straight back to work. The responsibilities were waiting, and I resumed the seriousness they required. But I returned refreshed, with the memory of Bormio and those mountain roads still very close.

My friends will be pleased to know they can stop explaining the appeal of a Porsche to me.

I have a different question for them now: when are we going back?