A long time ago in a time before Covid, 23 Aston Drivers planned a road trip to the Monza Grand Prix of 2020. 3 Years later that trip finally happened in 2022. Somewhere in the middle of all that we created a new club for likeminded Aston enthusiasts.

The numbers dwindled a little bit in between due to plans that other drivers already had in place. But we assembled 7 Cars and 12 people to drive round Europe and finishing at the F1 Monza race.

Plans changed slightly over the years as we added in more days to enjoy more of the alpine passes and a rest day at Lake Como.

The original planned was always to gather at the old Reims Grand Prix track at Gueux in France and explore the old buildings before traveling to Taittinger to who were hosting use for a tour of the Caves and taste their Champagne.

Taittinger was a great experience and their tour rep was very knowledgeable. We were treated to tales of the locals seeking refuge in the cellars during WW1 and then the Taittinger family feeling the wrath of the Nazi's in WW2 for selling them some sub standard Champagne against their will... The tour was very atmospheric and enhanced by the sub terrain engravings and wall art.

 

The wine champagne tasting needed to be put under some control as we were due to drive to Beaune for our overnight stop. So we restricted ourselves to 1/2 glasses for the second and third bottles that were availed to us.

We set off for the long drive to Beaune were we had a meal booked in the local Le Monge restaurant. This was just a short walk into the centre of town from our local hotel. Where we all managed to secure our cars in a very tight but secure underground car park. We all gathered at the local supermarket to refuel before joining the Autoroute when we realised one of our group was geographically challenged when leaving the hotel and had somehow managed to turn left instead of right. But we had all agreed 2 more RV points on our way to the Swiss border and the high alps.

Have you ever parked your car in the empty corner of the car park and returned to find it surrounded? Well we all know our Aston's are attractive but somehow we managed to attract 2 interlopers at the swiss border while waiting for our geographically challenged peer. Despite parking clear of any other cars 2 slipped into our little huddle...

The Alps followed, despite forecasted bad weather we seemed to be getting weather much better than we had reason to expect. This continued into the Alps.

We headed towards Andermatt via the Grimsel and then the Furka passes.

We stopped for a quick catch of our breaths at the Rhone Glacier where we bumped into some fellow Aston drivers and a rumour that AML were in the area photographing the new DBS Volante F1 Edition. We soon stumbled into them a few miles up the road. Along with a 707 DBX escort vehicle.

We of course had the obligatory stop at James Bond Strasse. Where some enjoyed the experience of re-enacting a certain pose.

Onto Andermatt and a deserved rest stop before we spent the next day re-tracing our steps around the Furka and Grimsel and following on to the Susten pass as a clockwise loop back to Andermatt. 

 

We had a booking on the Gelmebahn Funicular but we recived the news overnight that the railway with a 107% steep climb to the top of the mountains was closed to do a small rockfall that day. So we swapped our plans around a little a spent extra time exploring the Rhone Glacier and the internal tunnels that you can explore for a small fee.

 

 

(CONTINUES IN PART 2)