Day 4 – 216 km: Goldfinger views on Furka Pass

When the first thing you see in the morning when you look out from the window is a beautiful sun rising behind a mountain silhouette, life is quite good. This was the view I had from my hotel room at Grimsel Hospiz, and with a relaxing background sound of babbling water from Grimselsee it is a lovely way to start your morning.

The route plan for the last day started with a drive up to the Belvedere corner on Furka Pass, because if you are so close to it there is no way you can skip that road (and the best part is in my opinion that climb up to Belvedere), and then drive Susten Pass on the route back to Zürich.

Furka Pass was just as good as I remembered. My first drive here was in 2012 in my mum’s Audi Avant. I was 24 years old, had been one year single, was fed up with my life, so I said I need her car and left Finland. Followed by the words “I am not sure if I will come back” (read: I packed almost everything I owned in that car and was hoping to find my place on this planet… and by the way, still searching…). After two months just me, the dog and the car on roads in Europe I in fact was kind enough to return her the car. I was also a little wiser. It was not a sports car experience, however I fell in love with Furka Pass already back then. Although a road that is nice to drive is always most important I think we all agree that roads that look picture perfect in photos add that little extra. That is why you see so many photos of Stelvio Pass, Furka Pass, Transfagarasan etc online – they look good in photos. Then there are other great great driver’s roads that are so hard to explain, because you never get that perfect shot of them to really inspire people to go there.

The best view in my opinion is the one you already see when you are approaching it, before you even are on Furkastrasse. If you are coming down from Grimsel Pass towards Furka Pass there are a few corners on Grimsel where the view over to Furka is w-o-w.

Just before approaching the first hairpin bends for the climb up on Furka is the next w-o-w. The Swiss really knew how to build beautiful roads!

The final w-o-w is of course from the top looking down at all those hairpin turns you just enjoyed.

You could continue up all the way and drive down on the other side but I wanted to take a few more photos of Grimsel Pass in daylight, so instead I turned around in the Belvedere corner and drove back up on Grimsel Pass, from where I continued via Innertkirchen to Susten Pass.

It was my first time on Susten Pass and to be honest for photos, it is a tricky one. Because I was on a quite tight schedule to get back to Zürich with a washed and polished 370Z Nismo in time, I had to leave the searching for that “holy photo spot” for another time. I want to find a really nice spot where you get a good photo of the car and the road and I am sure it is there somewhere if you climb higher and go when there is less traffic. Need to try with some other car another time! I also want to drive it from the other direction (Wassen to Gadmen), it might be even better that way!

And what is my conclusion of the Nissan 370Z Nismo after four days with it, and about 1400 km later? It is a daily driver for a person who enjoys a car like this. It is not a car for everyone of course, but with the hand on my heart I can say I would personally not mind driving one every day. I did not have a moment with the car when it felt annoying or bad to drive. I had one incident on the highway when I almost did not see a car in the blind corner changing lanes, because the visibility really is close to zero in that direction, but you learn to live with it. All the times after this close call I knew I need to look a little extra so no big deal in the end if you are aware of the “problem”. The stiff suspension and sometimes slightly uncomfortable ride might feel more like an issue in countries with really bad road conditions – but Switzerland, France and Northern Italy, most of the time, no problem.