Pictures: Finalgear Mini-Roadtrip, Dolomites, Italy, Aug 7-11 2016

[lip]

Meet thread is here, in case you have no idea what these pics are about.
Anyway, on to the pictures:

Sunday, August 7th 2016 (Day 1/4)

Off I went on a (relative) short 4h drive from Switzerland to Italy. To my advance I had this left-lane clearing-machine infront of me for some time:

Dolomite mountains ahead, seems I'm on the right track:

At late afternoon I came up on the campsite, surprising the other 9 speed merchants roadtrip participants with my unannounced presence. - Politely they didn't complain about this, atleast not inside my hearing range.

Standing around doing nothing is for Ringmeet so we went for a nice dinner instead:

More to come, stay tuned...

 

[lip]

Monday, August 8th 2016 (Day 2/4)

Morning view from the campsite. Not bad:

We set off at 9:30 which is very respectable in Finalgear roadtrip terms. Bravo! The first pass road was near:

But let's have a look at the whole road block roadtrip brigade:

smoke-screen A4, tire-shredding Polo, tunnel-barking S6, driver-cooking Caddy, bangernomics time-bomb 106, stealthy 4'er, airy and shouty 3'er, and almost-veteran-car 190

Nothing to see here, just some people having a nice roadtrip...

...going through very Italian towns...

... and on some great mountain roads...

...up to the top of the world....

... and down again. Many times.

I had a blast with my barking V8, but regardless of that I soon gave Matt some wheel time...

... and his expression at 0:10 says it all:

The roads were really awesome...

... and so was the scenery and the weather. Man, what a great day!

More to come, stay tuned:

 

[DanRoM]

I'm jealous of you for the weather you've had.

tire-shredding Polo, bangernomics time-bomb 106, stealthy 4'er

Whose are those?

 

[lip]

Tuesday, August 9th 2016 (Day 3/4)

Since I was sleeping im my car I was able to choose my overnight place more freely than the tent-guys. Outside of the tighly packed camping area I had superb peace and solitude.

And off we go again into the great scenery. And again, I was very impressed with the early start. I really mean that!

Many castles around in the Dolomite area. Love these things.

Now that's a van-mans van! Souped up and looking the business! Was quite a workout for the driver tough. :lol:

Again, awesome pass roads. Sadly the weather went slowly worse...

... and so the very random make-your-own-sandwich stop was more "spring-day-in-Britain" than "summer-day-in-Italy". :?

Regardless of that roadtrip greatness was had, faster roads included for variety:

Sadly the falling temperatures and the oncoming rain also meant I had to drive the rest of the day with closed up windows, which did cut the audible fun a bit:

Some time later, on the last stretch back to the campsite, the rain really came:

But who cares, most Restaurants have a roof, tasty liquids...

... and awesome food.

More to come, stay tuned...

 

[lip]

Wednesday, August 10th 2016 (Day 4/4)
This was my goodbye day since I had to be back in Switzerland on Thursday. I only carried along with the others for about two hours until we had to go separat ways. Me going westward heading home, the others northwards heading to the Ringmeet.

Meh, crap weather at the start...

... but as soon as we crossed over the Brenner Pass into Austria it went better:

Btw, around this time I handed my S6 over to Icebone so he could have a go with the V8. He then set off from the service station straight onto the motorway... with the handbrake still engaged. :lol:

Ou-la-la!

But soon enough we had to part ways, and there I was, alone on my way home.

Anyway, was a nice Roadtrip, thanks for the time, have a nice Ringmeet and see ya next year!
Greetings, lip

 

[Viper007Bond]

Some brought a work van on the drive? :lol:

 

[Posambique]

Yay, nice to see some pics!

 

[Perc]

Some brought a work van on the drive? :lol:

IIRC he's called Flat Pack Dan on the forums and as far as I know he's the boss so I don't think anyone minds if he brings his own van.

My father owns one as well, although his is technically not a van since it's a Life model with five seats and a full car interior. It actually drives and rides very well. It's the polar opposite to "sporty" though. :lol:

Great plate, btw.

 

[lip]

tire-shredding Polo, bangernomics time-bomb 106, stealthy 4'er

Whose are those?

- The Polo and the Peugeot came with 3 friendly Slovenians, but I actually have no idea if they turned up in association with Ice or if they already had a link to Finalgear beforehand.
- The diesel-4'er was Tobias' Ersatz-Alfa. :lol:

 

[D-Fence]

Dropping mine without comment

 

[IceBone]

PICS! (in somewhat chronological order)

 

[lip]

^ Superb shots.

Has anyone made any videos?

 

[lip]

^ Probably not... :lol:

Anyway, thread bump deluxe, but I just watched a recent Shmee video and while looking at at this...

... "hm, that looks very familiar", my toughts. Yep, turns out this is the same place near Vason (Italy) were we took some line-up shots during the roadtrip:

Just as a random note. - And btw, you guys sure you have no videos?