Hi everyone

I don't tend to post here much (unless something goes wrong with my Jag!), but some of you may remember me from the Brighton meet last year - I was the young guy with the black X350.

Anyway, I've since moved to the south coast of France, with my X350, and I've been taking advantage of my location to do various road trips around Europe with my Jaguar. I've never really considered posting about them here, but I was speaking to a friend last night and he suggested people might be interested, so here goes!

A week or so ago, I decided to go to the Alps with four friends. We booked an apartment in a small town in the southern French Alps, and set off with no preperation at all - no snow chains or even winter tyres! I'd heard that the roads had been cleared, and not much snow was expected, so I decided to risk it. I did however save the addresses of various places along the way where we could pick up chains if necessary, but I didn't fancy trying to fit them to my beloved Callistos!

It was only around 200 miles from my house to our destination, but the journey consisted mostly of windy alpine passes - almost no motorways whatsoever. To begin with, things went very well - the roads were completely clear, and I decided to follow a gritter who was keeping up a decent pace, just in case things got any more tricky.



After about 20 miles however, the gritter turned off, and things did indeed get more tricky






My X350 was running Pirelli P Zero summer tyres with not a huge amount of tread left, so at this point, I was seriously considering stopping to get chains. However (perhaps due to all the weight in the back), the Jag gripped remarkably well, with only the slightest of back end movement when going up steep hills.

After a quick break.....



..... We kept going, and the roads improved drastically Completely clear, and surrounded by beautiful scenery







Luckily, the roads stayed that way, and we made it to the apartment without incident. The next day, we decided to attempt to drive to a local ski resort, and were greeted with slightly more challenging conditions





This hill was very tricky, but incredibly the Jag made it, after a bit of a run up and careful acceleration, and it turned out to be the only difficult road we were to encounter on the way to the resort - everything else was smooth tarmac and beautiful scenery.





The drive back was totally uneventful, as most of the snow on the roads had been gritted. This did result in the Jag getting dirtier than it's ever been though!



Overall, it was a fantastic trip. Perhaps not the natural habitat for the X350, but I was extremely impressed with how it performed, particularly after reading plenty of posts where people basically said not to bother leaving your driveway in the snow. Obviously, it's best to be prepared with the correct tyres and chains, but it was great to discover that these cars aren't quite as bad in wintry conditions as one might assume.

Finally, I made a little Youtube video of shots from my dash camera throughout the drive. Unfortunately, my video editing program ruined the quality, and the only background music youtube would allow me to use is pretty awful, but nonetheless it's still a decent thing to watch if you want to get an idea of the roads in that area. The footage is sped up, as most of the journey was taken at a leisurely pace!


Thanks for reading

 

Beautiful! Thanx for sharing!!

 

Hi geekman,

I'm very jealous! Thanks for posting your beautiful photos!

Cheers,

Don

 

Shiny cars are nice.

But, a fast car covered in road splash is attractive too. It shows that
it's been well used.

 

Quite a trip! I'm one of those people who has his X350 tucked in the garage for the winter, but your travelogue and pictures are amazing!

 

Thanks everyone You'll be pleased to know the "road splash" look is staying for the next few days, as it looks like it'll be raining non stop and I'm not going to clean it for it to get dirty again as soon as I move it off the drive!

 

Awesome! Great trip

 

That was cool!! Beautiful scenery! Keep 'em coming!

 

Superb, beautiful scenery and glad to hear that the Jag made it without incident.

I've found it to be quite challenging with even a hint of snow, so you did well.

Thanks for sharing...

 

Thanks for reminding me how beautiful the Alps are. I last saw them in my Rover 75 in 2007 when I managed to drive over four of the passes, but it was summer, so pretty easy. It did, however, start to snow on the Furka Pass near the Rhone glacier on July 2nd !!

Of course in 2007, the UK pound-Swiss Franc rate was very favourable. It is pretty awful right now. I sometimes think the way the Swiss keep invaders at bay is making an invasion too expensive !

 

Awesome trip. Thanks for sharing.
Now I may take mine up to Big Bear ski resort (near Los Angeles) one of these days.

I like reading positive posts like this, not just when people have issues. So keep 'em coming!

Cheers,
Wolfy

 

Thank you for sharing the pictures. It looked like you had a great time and the scenery was captivating. Your car looks great too, it's such a graceful cat. Glad it didn't slip and slide on you.