Just like some people make a yearly promise to take care of their mental health by taking a seaside vacation, I’ve set myself a similar goal. Mine is an Alpine road trip. Too broad? Absolutely — and that’s exactly the magic of it. All you need is the right road somewhere between Wiener Neustadt and the French Riviera. Whether the route takes you down secret backroads you only hear about in a local pub (or buried deep in forbidden motorcycle forums), or along famous stretches celebrated by generations of drivers, depends on one thing. Actually, two. The first is time. The second? The car.
I’m waiting on front of car showroom while the sun is already playing its summer beat. Something very good echoes down the road. I know exactly what I’m getting into, so instead of surprise, I simply smile — and wait for the moment when the first glimpse of that impossibly long bonnet appear around the corner. A randomly parked SUV finally reveals a silhouette you could never mistake for anything else. The lines are unmistakable: imposing, yet elegant, as it glides into the parking space beside me.
A mix of emotion and anticipation washes over me. I take the keys and let myself be pulled into a different reality — the AMG reality, and my own. From this moment on, we’ll be composing our own symphony. The cabin instantly absorbs, spoils, and challenges me at the same time. It whispers quietly: Play by your own rules… I can feel it sinking into my bloodstream, flowing through me like a superhero serum. I don’t want to wait any longer. I start the engine and go.
Instead of taking the usual detours, I set my sights straight on one of Austria’s most iconic roads. As much as I’d love the charming backroads around Wildalpen, all I get are glimpses between tunnels — forests, church towers, and fragments of countryside like torn pages from a postcard. But as soon as the first snow-capped peaks appear in the distance, it becomes clear: summer looks very different on the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse.
After a few hours of demanding, yet surprisingly swift driving, I stop at my mandatory checkpoint — the fuel station in Fusch an der Grossglocknerstrasse — and fill the tank with pure joy. Minutes later, a hand at the toll gate passes me the entry leaflets and lifts the barrier into a driver’s paradise. Arriving in the late afternoon has its own charm. And the more I pass signs reminding drivers to slow down and respect one another, the less I notice them.
I climb calmly, taking in views of powerful waterfalls spilling through narrow cracks in the mountainside. For late June, the volume of water is impressive. After the first sequence of hairpins, the road opens up — and suddenly the continuation appears, revealing hills that had been hidden behind a wall only moments before. I head to the mountain hotel first, partly to check in, partly to lighten the load. What comes next is my favourite part of this high-alpine road.
Imagine sitting there, ready to launch onto completely empty, perfectly smoothed tarmac. Your hands wrap around the the steering wheel, the engine resonates through your body, and every subtle movement of your wrists draws a line on the surface like the tip of an ink pen writing an adventure. The view through the windscreen plays with colour like something designed by top-tier artists — except you know this is real. Exactly what you came for.
And that’s only the beginning.
As the sun sets, darker shades of blue settle onto the ridgelines of the surrounding peaks. Along the roadside, massive walls of dirty orange snow rise up, marked with the scars of huge snow blowers. Just two weeks ago, a heavy snowfall surprised the locals and even forced the road to close for several days. Now, the drive feels even more special — more isolated, more intense, more connected with the mountains.
For the best view, I climb the cobbled access road to the famous Edelweisspitze viewpoint. I scatter a small flock of sheep who’ve mistaken the parking lot for a picnic spot. They take their time — and by the time they finally move, the last golden rays of the day are already gone. The dark curtain drops quickly, so I turn back towards the hotel… but in the most entertaining way possible.
I wake into the quiet of the next day. The kind of silence you only find in the mountains: heavy, clean, uninterrupted. After breakfast, I roll down into the valley, where the road straightens and the landscape becomes faster, flatter, less personal. The 100 pulls me south like a current, past Lienz and onward, until the border with Italy arrives almost without ceremony.
My first stop is Lago di Misurina. A classic scene: still water, sharp air, and the Dolomites standing in the distance like a myth. Tre Cime di Lavaredo sits above it all — a symbol so photographed it has become universal, yet still powerful in person. The place is crowded, of course. Tourists and drivers gather here for the same reason: to stand inside a postcard for a few minutes and pretend time is not moving. I take the last spot on a gravel lot by the shore and walk the loop with my camera, collecting the obvious shots — because sometimes the obvious is exactly what you came for.
The soundtrack is predictable too: the theatre of various performance cars echoing across the lake. Then a red Ferrari arrives and, without trying, shifts the centre of attention. Among dozens of 911s in the same safe spectrum of whites, greys and blacks, it lands like a flare. A reminder that colour still exists.
A boy with a camera circles the Ferrari obsessively, photographing it from every possible angle. The owner, proud and amused, opens the drivers door and offers him to take a seat. The boy refuses. Photographs are enough.
I’m about to unlock my own car, I hear a voice behind me. I turn around and see the very same boy with the camera. He doesn’t understand my language, but he's pointing — first at my cinnamon brown interior, then at his camera. I nod and let him in.
He sits quietly for a moment, overwhelmed by the charisma of a machine that isn’t even moving. Then he begins to shoot: details, shapes, surfaces. When he steps out, I catch the Ferrari owner’s expression — confused, slightly wounded, scanning every curve of the Affalterbach design as if trying to understand why anyone would look away from Italy’s national treasure.
And I realise, with a grin, that I’m enjoying this far more than I should.
For the next stretch I’m trapped behind double-decker buses, pinned to their pace through a series of bends where overtaking would be pointless. Cortina d’Ampezzo finally releases me. The town feels like a reset button — and from there, the Dolomites begin to play their best hand.
I fall back into a familiar loop, the one I’ve memorised like a favourite record. Passo Giau comes first: clean, rhythmic, almost too readable. It’s over quickly, but that is part of its charm — it leaves you wanting more. Passo Fedaia follows, running through galleries along Lago di Fedaia. Here the road becomes a corridor between stone and water, and the exhaust has space to sing.
The white rock faces rise in the background like stage scenery. The corners arrive in clusters, each one framed by a different angle of the same monumental geology. And then comes the delicacy of the day: Passo Gardena.
Reality interrupts.
A traffic light. Roadworks. A line of vehicles trapped in both directions. For a while we are all reduced to the same slow procession, no matter what badge sits on our bonnet. The queue dissolves in La Villa Stern. I slip away and head back toward Cortina, descending through Pocol, watching the day fold itself into evening. I park in the centre with the simple thought of dinner, and let the second night settle.
Day three begins with intention: Merano and Passo dello Stelvio. A clear goal.
But the mountains have their own schedule. Early in the morning I learn that the Trafoi side is still buried under snow — the same kind of early-season wall that can shut down a pass without apology. The route has to be changed.
But first, we head towards Jaufenpass. After the long sections along motorway — towns and roundabouts — Jaufen feels like oxygen. It is not the most dramatic pass in the Alps, but it has something better: a readable rhythm. I can sense the line before I see it. The car settles into the climb as if it has done it before. There is a strange peace in driving quickly when nothing surprises you — calm, filled with tension.
The first half disappears. I stop near the viewpoint hut, between motorcycles scattered across the lot like dropped toys. It’s busy, too busy, so I don’t linger. The descent is calling.
I’m almost past the avalanche tunnel when a group of fast riders appears behind me — loud and chaotic. I hold my pace steady and let them pass. But the road tightens up, narrows, sharpens and as their confidence begins to fade as I fill up, still, holding my steady pace, their rearview mirrors.
I don’t need to overtake. The road and traffic won’t allow it anyway. But I can stay close enough to remind them, that the straights are for fast machines, and turns are for fast drivers. With this massive engine, I feel strangely at home here. The bonnet no longer feels long — it feels perfectly measured, as if the car was designed for exactly these kinds of roads.
Down in the valley we scatter, each in a different direction, and the moment dissolves as quickly as it formed.
Two hours later, the blue sign appears: Umbrail and Stelvio.
In the village I turn left into a narrow street between houses. The climb continues in the same claustrophobic spirit — narrow lane, stone walls, a sense that the road was never meant for something this wide and powerful. The weather turns rainy and stays that way all the way to the summit. Stelvio, empty and grey, feels unfamiliar. I’ve never seen it like this. And because it is rare, it feels like a private viewing.
From there I descend toward Livigno, my base for the next two nights. I pass Bormio without stopping and cross Passo di Foscagno into the famous ski resort, where everything feels designed for winter, even in summer.
Somewhere beyond the horizon, I feel Switzerland approaching — not as a border, but as a mood. The memory of last year’s big drive is making a comeback. One look at the matte blue silhouette parked outside a local bed & breakfast, and the decision about the next day's drive, forms quietly in my mind.
Before dawn, I head toward Forcola di Livigno. A discreet crossing and I’m in the middle of the Bernina Pass. The road is perfect — not in the cliché sense, but in the strict, Swiss way. It feels measured, engineered for beauty. The surface is so clean it almost looks unreal. It’s ready to be consumed.
But this is only an appetizer.
In St. Moritz I continue along Silvaplanersee toward Maloja Pass. The famous “spaghetti” begins just outside the village of Maloja, descending in tightly stacked switchbacks. Yes — this pass is essentially a downhill run, the kind that forces you to breathe at the right moments.
I cross back into Italy, but only briefly. The plan is to return through another pass, another world. In Chiavenna I turn right, into a steep corridor where villages cling to the slopes at different altitudes. The rain intensifies. The climb toward Pianazzo is a sequence of hairpins interrupted by galleries — half-tunnels carved into stone, open to the air like ribs.
Lightning cracks above. Rain slams down. The rock walls amplify everything: the sound, the narrowness, the feeling of being inside something that is closing around you. For a moment, all I want is to be out of it.
I climb high enough for the shoulder to pull away from the road and bypassing Lago di Montespluga approach the summit of Splügenpass. Its other side feels like a different personality, as if the landscape itself changes language at the border.
I head toward Thusis, but instead of taking the newer road I choose the older route through Via Mala. It is short, but it is pure atmosphere: a narrow gorge where rock outcrops press inward, almost over the tarmac, intensifying the sense of adventure. It doesn’t last long — but it stays.
From Thusis I return toward Livigno via Albulapass, famous for weaving alongside a historic railway line and its viaducts. The tracks vanish into tunnels and reappear above the road, then suddenly beside it, as if following me. Mist fills the gaps between cliffs and steals the views, so I don’t stop for photographs. Some days are not for collecting images. Some days are for passing through.
I return the same way. One final ritual stop: the fuel station at Meyers Manx Café. Then Bernina Pass again — and after so much rain, the road is open only in one direction. Thankfully, it’s mine.
And as always, the final chapter is the long drive home: hours of motorway. The perfect space to absorb everything — the car, the roads, the moments. I set the Grand Tourer into its smoothest mode and sink into the seat.
No matter how hard we attacked the tight backroads, climbed into serious altitudes, collected compliments from strangers, or even chased down a few racers, now it’s time for the other face of the AMG GT 63. Equally capable. Equally reliable. Just wearing a different suit.
The Alps had given me everything I came for: speed and stillness, tension and release, noise and silence — stitched together by a ribbon of asphalt that never once felt accidental. And as the kilometres home began to erase the mountains in the rear view mirrors, one truth stayed sharp. You don’t return from a road trip like this with souvenirs. You return with a new internal map — one drawn in elevation lines, fuel stops, and the exact shape of a corner taken at the perfect unfiltered moment of joy.