Our inaugural Peaks & Summits | Spain and Portugal GT Tour ’23 was a very quickly planned event after two car related stars aligned, and wow what a truly unforgettable grand tour experience it was!
Those stars came together whilst we were enjoying a drink in the bar in Pau, after a fantastic track session at Pau on our Tour Des Pyrenees 2023 event, when we received a phone call from Porsche Exeter to say we had got the final allocation for our GT3 Touring! The second star was a video we had watched in the lead up to the tour by YouTuber and friend Joe Achilles, taking a Porsche UK GT3 Touring down to the ‘Best road in the world’ (Joe’s view) to celebrate 10 years on YouTube! WATCH HERE.
At that point the 2 stars aligned, started to chat in the bar and floated the idea of a GT tour down to the Serra da Estrela, the highest point in mainland Portugal. It was clear there was a real want for this tour later in the year, and at that point Peaks & Summits was born!
After a one-take recce for the tour in the summer, September arrived and over 7 days, fourteen cars enjoyed the chance to really enjoy their GT cars to the limit, on some of the most breathtaking roads in Northern Spain, in the Picos de Europa and Portugal’s Estrela mountains.
The tighter turns and high rock walls of the Picos de Europa, where the noise of the V8’s and flat 6’s reverberated off the rock faces, to the jaw-dropping open fast roads that head over the heights of the Serra da Estrela, this journey through the Iberian landscapes delivered everything a grand tour promises and more.
Starting in Oviedo, the adventure kicked off in style, with the mountainous scenic motorways setting the tone for the days ahead. From there, the quiet and rural roads of northern Spain carried us to the Vidago Palace, a stunning 5-star hotel that exceeded every expectation. The lesser-known Porsche test route near Vidago on Day 4 was a revelation—every bit as thrilling as promised and worthy of being called one of the ‘Leading Roads of the World.’
The highlight, of course, was the Serra da Estrela. Often compared to Italy’s Stelvio Pass, with its hairpin climbs that route you through dramatic rock formations, vast plateaus and dizzying summits, were nothing short of spectacular.
