It’s late Monday morning in Munich, we are sitting in our Hotel lobby and looking at all the people dressed up and ready for Octoberfest, thinking …. “why don’t we should join them”. It’s at this moment another option comes our way, and it quickly evolves into a good reason to skip Octoberfest. We’ve got the keys to the new 605hp, 0-100 in 3.2second, 305km/h top speed Audi RS7 Performance and tickets to the Monaco Yacht Show 2017, so lets go the old GTspirit way and roadtrip there!

First on our agenda is to leave Munich behind us and nip over the boarder into Northern Italy for a couple of nice stopovers. Cruising along the German highways, the 605 horsepower super-sedan quickly feels like home. Once we hit Switzerland, the land of no speeding, we tone down the driving and seek out some stunning mountain roads to avoid the highways. One of which was the fantastic, and quiet, mountain road leading to San Bernardino, which has to be one of our top tips if you are ever in the area, avoid the tunnel and take in the stunning views you get from mountain passes! Next we head to the Verzasca Dam, made famous by the James Bond film Goldeneye, when Pierce Brosnan’s character bungee jumped off the top. Looking back this was the perfect place to have a refreshing break after driving all day. Our first overnight stop we stayed in Piemonte near Asti, surrounded by vineyards and only a couple of hours away from Monaco this was the perfect place to spend the night. From Piemonte heading to Monaco, you can either take the winding mountainous roads used in the Monte-Carlo rally roads, or the the fast flowing highway, we took the later as we wanted to spend a full day at the Yacht Show.

When you travel to Monaco, especially during big events and with a car, it is always worth bearing in mind parking might be tricky. The easiest and nice way not to worry about this is by staying in one of Monacos hotels and let the valet parking take care of your car, but if this is not an option for you then there are plenty of out of town car parks that are a short train or taxi ride away. For our second overnight stop of the trip we stayed at the Golden Tulip Hotel at Valbonne, in the hills of Antibes. We found the hotels spa was a perfect way to unwind after long day enjoying breathtaking yachts, toys and accessories. The next day we worked our way up the Riviera coast, an area with wonderful restaurants and ports full of suprt-yachts, we couldn’t help but stop off at a few, beginning with St. Tropez. When we reached Port Vauban, there were plenty of yachts to take in, including the jaw dropping worlds largest largest private yacht, Dilbar.

Just down the coast from Port Vauban is our top recommendation if you are looking for a superb lunch or dinner experiences, Hotel Du Cap-Eden-Roc. As with alot of the Antibes, this is one of the playgrounds for the rich and famous in the Riviera, and the food matches it’s reputation. We ended the third day of our roadtrip in Loano, Italy, at a hotel in a attached to the local yacht club, where once again we could stare out into the Mediterranean at some more fantastic Super-Yachts.

Our drive the next morning in the RS7 was one that we had been anticipating highly, as we were about to take in the Cinque Terre, a UNESCO World Heritage site on the Italian coast. The Cinque Terre is five small cities built on the rocky coast, which if you have the time and are a fan of historical cities and architecture we’d highly recommend spending a few days in the are to take it all in. Unfortunately this time we couldn’t afford to spend alot of time here, taking in the small mountain roads, and breathtaking views above the city before stopping for lunch in Cinque Terre itself.

Once we’d ticked Cinque Terre off our list, and refueled ourselves and the RS7, we headed north and on to our next destination, Lake Garda. Having been inspired by Top Gear, we decided to go and scout out some nice mountain roads. One of these routes took us up Lake Garda, to the mountain roads behind Gargnano, where we found the stunning Lefay Resort. Here you will find some of the best views looking over Lake Garda, and the perfect spot for lunch. After a brief amount of time at Lefay Resort, we continued on our way to our hotel for the night in the beautiful little town of Riva del Garda at the north end of Lake Garda.

The next morning was our final day of the roadtrip, and we set ourselves one mission on our way back to Munich…. avoid the highways as much as possible! Thankfully from the north end of Lake Garda there are plenty of mountain passes to choose from to avoid the tunnels. Our route took us from Riva del Garda up to Merano and then across to Timmelsjoch on the Austrian boarder. From previous experiences in the area we’ve come to think that that this road is one of the best in the area, and once again we were luckly to experience it with no traffic on the passes.

After making it down the other side of the pass and into Sölden, we headed directly to Garmisch where our luck ran out and we spent the majority of the passes stuck in long ques of traffic taking the same route as us. Due to these delays we ended up braking our days mission, and reluctantly jumped onto the Autobahn for the final leg of our GTspirit roadtrip, and bombed it back to Munich.

We have to say this RS7 Performance is one fantastic machine, fully capable on any kind of road or surface, it adapts to small mountain roads, high-speed autobahns perfectly and makes city traffic jams a lot more bearable! We couldn’t have asked for a better car to make this trip with, thank you Audi for this great experience.

Words and Photos by HeCe

Previous articleFirst Impression: New Mercedes-Benz G-Class
Next articleOfficial: ABT Audi RS3 with 500hp

1 COMMENT

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here