/// Porsche Travel Experience · Texas Hill Country
There is no substitute
Seven days in Texas
InSun 8 Nov · AUSDL 2011 · wheels down 12:32 PM, together
OutSat 14 Nov · AUSAA 361 at 1:00p · DL 2062 at 3:35p
Countdowneverything booked · paid in full
Nothing left to decide
Every open question on this page has been answered. Flights are booked, seats
are picked, Dad’s Atlanta night is confirmed. What remains is errands — the note
for Rachel below, and museum tickets for the Monday.
Porsche runs the show from wheels-down to wheels-up: hotels, every meal,
fuel, detailing, luggage between hotels, airport transfers, and a hospitality vehicle
trailing the drive. Our side of it is now one real errand — send Rachel the
flight details. Everything else is booking a museum ticket and waiting for her packet. Rachel’s real
itinerary, packing list and weather notes land around 8 Sep, and the week-by-week
detail below gets rebuilt around them when they do.
/// 01 · Flights
Getting there
Booked 7 Sep · Main Cabin · seats assigned
Done. Both tickets are bought, both in Main Cabin, and the seats are
assigned. The comparing is over — what is below is simply what is happening. Dad’s
Saturday hop to Atlanta is confirmed too; it sits on its own ticket, so the flight number is
the only thing still to drop in.
Dad
Madison → Atlanta → Austin
Delta throughout · Main Classic · SkyMiles Platinum
Sat 7 Nov
Madison → Atlanta confirmed
The night at Shannon’s, on its own ticket. Send the flight number
and times over and they go in here. Rachel does not need this one — she only
arranges the Austin ends.
Sun 8 Nov
DL 2011 · Atlanta 11:00a → Austin 12:32pseat 18C
Nonstop, 2h 32m. No alarm before seven. On the ground 1h 28m before the
2:00 PM gate.
1h 44m in Minneapolis — comfortably clear of the 41 minutes he vetoed
back in August.
DL 1599 · Minneapolis 8:14p → Madison 9:17pseat 16C
Home by half nine.
Michael
Miami → Atlanta → Austin, and home nonstop
Delta out, American back · Main Cabin both ways
Sun 8 Nov
DL 1249 · Miami 6:04a → Atlanta 8:07aseat 27D
The early one. It is also the cheapest and the roomiest — the 7:10a
cost more and left an hour less slack.
DL 2011 · Atlanta 11:00a → Austin 12:32pseat 18B
2h 53m in Atlanta, then the same plane as Dad — and the seat
next to him.
Sat 14 Nov
AA 361 · Austin 1:00p → Miami 4:48pseat 25D
Nonstop, 2h 48m. Straight home, four hours earlier than the Delta return would have managed
— and it came in slightly cheaper, which was not the expected answer.
Sunday, on one clock. Two men, three flights, one gate time.
Michael
DL 12492h 53m in ATLDL 2011
Dad
at Shannon’sDL 2011
6:04a8:07a11:00a12:32p2:00p gate
same plane out of atlanta · seats 18b and 18c · 1h 28m of margin
on the deadline
/// 02 · One thing to send
The note for Rachel
Either of us can send it · she needs it to book the transfers
Rachel cannot assign the partner drivers without all five fields
— airline, flight number, date, time and confirmation number, for each of us, both
directions. Everything below is filled in except the confirmation numbers and Dad’s
Saturday flight: the numbers are deliberately not stored on this page, so type them in
once and they stay in your own browser, nowhere else. Then hit copy.
Four 911s · rotated every morning · Porsche assigns, we log
Four cars, two drivers, six days. Which car you get on which morning is
Porsche’s call, not ours — so these are notes on what to look for in each
one, and a log to fill in as the week hands them out.
911 Carrera GTS 532 hp
The new T-Hybrid — the first electrified 911 anyone will let you near. The sensible
one, by this fleet’s standards only.
What to notice: no turbo lag at all. The electric motor spins the
turbo up before the exhaust can, so it pulls from anywhere in the rev range — an
engine that behaves like a much bigger naturally-aspirated one. Rear-axle steering makes it
feel a size smaller than it is the moment the road starts bending.
not logged yet
911 Targa 4 GTS 532 hp
Same engine, all-wheel drive, plus the slowest and most theatrical roof mechanism in the
business.
What to notice: the roof, obviously — nineteen seconds of
unnecessary ballet, and the only correct way to watch it is parked, holding coffee, with
an audience. Underneath, it is the only all-wheel-drive car of the four, which you feel
as extra composure rather than extra speed.
not logged yet
911 Turbo S 701 hp
Zero to sixty in 2.4 seconds. The one the two of you will be politely negotiating
over at breakfast. Seniority is not a recognized claim. Neither is law school.
What to notice: how unbothered it is. Cars this quick usually feel
busy; this one shortens the road without ever seeming to try, and the first full-throttle
moment is the closest thing to a physical joke in the fleet. Best appreciated where there
is room — which is most of the Hill Country.
not logged yet
911 Turbo S Cabriolet 701 hp
All of the above, plus sky.
What to notice: everything above, plus the noise. November here runs
50s to 70s, so if this one turns up on a warm afternoon the roof should be down regardless
of what anyone’s hair is doing. Heated seats and a wind deflector make it work at
temperatures that look wrong on paper.
not logged yet
On the seats. Full disclosure before anyone asks: these are
six-day sport buckets. Heated, yes. Massage, no. That is a Cayenne feature, and the
navy Cayenne is staying home in Monona — the one category where the fleet loses to
Dad’s daily by a knockout.
/// 04 · The logbook
Who drove what
Nothing is assigned yet · tap to set, tap again to clear
Porsche hands out the keys each morning, so nobody knows this in
advance. Write down what you were actually given, as it happens, from a phone at
breakfast. It saves to the site, not to your phone — so whatever one of us puts
in, the other sees next time they open this page. Everything can be undone, reshuffled or
wiped.
loading…
four cars · nothing assigned
/// 05 · The journal
What it was actually like
One entry each, every day · rated in revs · saved to the site and emailed
We each keep our own. Nothing here overwrites the other — two
entries a day, written independently, and at the end of the week we read both. Rate what
deserves rating, write what deserves writing, add photographs. Every save is emailed to the
pair of us with the full-size pictures attached, so it exists somewhere that is not a
website.
Writing as
pick one to begin
At the wheel
Weather
0 / 4000
Photographs
Full size is kept and emailed; a smaller copy goes on the page. Up to six a
day, 9 MB each.
/// 06 · So far
Both sides of it
Everything either of us has written, as it lands
nothing written yet — the week has not started
/// 07 · The week
The circuit
Seven days, one lap
Three things about the second week of November that are not obvious
from a map, and that a driving tour will not necessarily tell you.
The deer
7 Nov
Texas Parks and Wildlife puts peak rut in the eastern Edwards Plateau
on 7 November — the day before we land. General deer season opens the same day.
Bucks cross without looking and ranch traffic is out at dawn and dusk. This is the highest
deer week of the year in exactly this geography, and an animal strike is the realistic
worst case of the trip. The hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset are the two
to treat carefully, especially anywhere wooded.
The light
5:44p
Sunset in Fredericksburg on the 8th, drifting to 5:41 on the 14th
— about 10h 45m of daylight, and the clocks went back on 1 November. Any long
drive has to start early or finish in the dark. The compensation is that the sun never
gets high all week: the limestone stays warm-lit and the long descents are side-lit rather
than flattened.
The crowds
gone
The Willow City Loop in November is the version you actually want
— the bluebonnet traffic that makes it bumper-to-bumper in April is six months away,
the grasses are gold, and the granite is exposed instead of carpeted. One catch:
Lost Maples peaks for fall colour in this exact week and jams RM 187 on weekends,
which is the approach to the best part of RM 337.
And the phones will not work. Expect no signal at all on the
Willow City Loop and for the twenty-five minutes either side of Enchanted Rock on
RM 965 — the loop runs in a creek canyon with no tower serving it, and the park has
no coverage. AT&T is the one carrier that reaches Enchanted Rock at all. Anything needed
at a gate — a day pass, a museum ticket — wants downloading in Fredericksburg
first, and this page keeps working offline once it has been opened once.
the loop is the shape of the week, not gps · gold dashes are day 5’s
cave detour · the texas inset is to scale — that is where in the state the
three towns actually sit · day-by-day roads are porsche’s call
/// 08 · Day by day
The week, in detail
Provisional until the 8 Sep packet · “Porsche’s call” = educated guess
01Sun 8 NovAustin
TBD
Land · AUS · 12:32pbooked
Austin-Bergstrom, on the ground by 2:00 PM. A Porsche private transfer
meets the flight — no bags to carry, no car to rent, which will feel wrong for roughly a
day. Booking the flights is the one real to-do left — the choices are priced up
in Getting there, and Rachel needs the details to schedule the driver.
PM
Four Seasons Austinnights 1 & 6
98 San Jacinto Blvd, on Lady Bird Lake. Same hotel bookends the trip
— whatever you forget in the room on night one is a problem for night six.
Meet the crew, meet the other couples, get the route talk and the keys
ceremony. From this point until Saturday you will not see a single bill — Dad
already saw the only one that matters.
02Mon 9 NovAustin → Fredericksburg
AM
First draw from the garage
Cars are assigned each morning and rotate daily, so both of you drive all four
models by Friday. Split of wheel time within the day is ours to negotiate. Suggest
settling the protocol at breakfast on day one, in writing, witnessed.
DAY
Into the Hill Countryporsche’s call
Austin to Fredericksburg is 90 minutes if you drive it like a rental. Porsche
will not drive it like a rental — expect the long way through the ranch roads, a lunch
stop, and a hospitality van appearing exactly when someone wants a Topo Chico.
PM
Albert Hotelnights 2 & 3
242 E Main St, Fredericksburg — new, small, and the best address
in town. Two nights here means one full day with no luggage to move.
Loop day out of Fredericksburg. The classics in reach: Willow City Loop
(the one the magazines photograph), Enchanted Rock, Luckenbach (population 3,
all of them famous). Which of these Porsche actually routes is theirs to reveal on 8 Sep.
EVE
Main Street, Fredericksburg
German settlement town — bakeries, beer gardens, and an unreasonable
number of tasting rooms for a town this size. The evening stroll writes itself.
04Wed 11 NovFredericksburg → San Antonio
DAY
South through the hillsporsche’s call
Fredericksburg down to San Antonio, almost certainly the scenic way through
Comfort or Boerne. It is Veterans Day — worth a nod at dinner; Grandpa Byrne
gets a toast.
PM
Hotel Emmanights 4 & 5
136 E Grayson St, Pearl District — a 19th-century brewhouse turned
into the best hotel in Texas. The lobby bar, Sternewirth, has tanks from the old
brewery you can sit inside. Do that.
Past Texas tours have included a cave excursion as the set-piece
experience — likely Natural Bridge Caverns or similar. Porsche’s fine print
warns of “a mile of walking and two flights of stairs.” You will both
survive. Wear the shoes anyway.
EVE
Pearl District night
The Pearl is walkable from the room: river, food hall, and the bar downstairs.
Second night in the same hotel — nothing to pack, nowhere to be.
06Fri 13 NovSan Antonio → Austin
DAY
Last day in the carsporsche’s call
Back up to Austin the long way. By now you have both driven all four —
final verdicts are to be recorded on this page and held against each other at
Thanksgiving.
PM
Four Seasons Austin, again
Night 6. The spa here does actual massages — which, after five
days in sport buckets, is not a joke but a medical recommendation. The closest this trip
officially comes to a massage chair. Book ahead if wanted.
EVE
Farewell dinnerporsche’s call
Last one on Porsche’s tab. Keys go back tonight or tomorrow —
grieve accordingly.
07Sat 14 NovHome
1:00p 3:35p
AUS · departboth booked
The tour releases us after breakfast, so both returns are comfortable.
Michael on AA 361 at 1:00 PM, nonstop to Miami. Dad on DL 2062 at 3:35 PM,
Minneapolis then Madison, home by half nine. Private transfer to Austin-Bergstrom either
way. Somewhere in Monona, a navy Cayenne is waiting with the massage seats on —
the trip’s only upgrade.
/// 09 · The roads
What we are actually driving
Which days they fall on is Porsche’s call — that they are on the list is not
Porsche names these itself. Its own page for this tour calls out
FM 335, 336 and 337 — the Three Sisters — “considered the best roads in
the Lone Star State”, and says the week takes in two of the three. The rest of what
follows is the region’s standing canon among people who drive it constantly.
RM 337 the best one
Camp Wood to Leakey to Vanderpool to Medina, 56 miles. Hairpin switchbacks,
real elevation, and one fifteen-mile stretch with about sixty-five corners. Two proper
overlooks with parking. Vanderpool east to Medina is the best section of the best road.
Watch for gravel washed across the bottom of grades, and note that roughly half the cattle
guards sit in a corner.
RM 336 the vertical one
SH 41 down the West Frio to Leakey, 26 miles. Ten miles of serious climbing
and dropping before it settles. Free-range cattle and frequent guards. If 337 flows, 336
heaves.
RM 335 the empty one
SH 41 to Barksdale, 29 miles. Less aggressive in the corners, more of a
rollercoaster — big dips, long rises, almost nobody on it. Fuel up first; there is
nothing out there.
The Willow City Loop no signal
Thirteen miles off RM 1323 north of Fredericksburg, dropping into the Coal
Creek canyon under Bee Rock. Narrow chip-seal, just wide enough for two cars, cattle
guards, low water crossings, blind corners, cattle on the road. You cannot hurry it and
should not try. Every fence post is private land — purple paint is legally a No
Trespassing sign in Texas. Photograph from the shoulder.
RM 1376 where the Turbo makes sense
Luckenbach down through Sisterdale to Boerne, 32 miles, and it runs between
two of our three hotels. Fast curves, rolling hills, excellent pavement, no cattle guards,
no low water crossings, wide shoulders, light traffic. The one open road of the week
— and those same wide shoulders and crests give police somewhere to sit.
RM 965 no signal
Fredericksburg north to Enchanted Rock. Rolling rather than technical, but the
dome rises over a crest ahead of you, which is worth the drive on its own. The park usually
fills; entry wants reserving.
Old No. 9 & Grapetown Road
The old Fredericksburg & Northern railroad alignment, running twenty miles
south to Comfort under heavy tree cover, with Old Tunnel State Park on it. Grapetown Road
cuts across from Luckenbach — five miles, no traffic, and rough in places.
Enforcement tightens nearer Fredericksburg.
RM 32, the Devil’s Backbone
Twenty-three miles along a ridge with the country falling away both sides.
Porsche’s own published route uses it. Honest note: it is a travelled highway and
heavily patrolled — the view is the point, not the driving.
One caveat worth carrying. The Hill Country flooded badly in July 2026
— twenty to twenty-six inches in places. SH 39 lost bridge sections and SH 16 closed in
Gillespie County; state highways have largely reopened, county roads are slower. Nothing was
reported damaged on the Loop, 965, 1376 or the Sisters, but that is an absence of reports
rather than an all-clear. Re-check drivetexas.org in late October, and ask Rachel.
/// 10 · Downtime
The gaps
Porsche has the meals · this is the hour before dinner
Everything here is walkable from that night’s hotel — the
cars belong to Porsche and the point is not to need one. Hours were checked in September;
Hill Country places close on Mondays and Tuesdays with real enthusiasm, so the days
each one is open are listed rather than assumed.
AFour SeasonsAustin · nights 1 & 6
2 min
Lady Bird Lake, out the back door
The hike-and-bike trail runs along the water directly behind the hotel. Flat the
whole way, busy with rowers, and you can turn back at any point — 45 minutes gets
you to the Congress Avenue bridge and home again. The best jet-lag cure on the trip.
9 min
The Elephant Roomjazz · 315 congress
A low basement jazz club under Congress Avenue, running for decades and still
not a tourist thing. No reservations, ever — first come, first served. Sunday
7pm–1am, $5; Friday from 8pm, $10, and no cover before 8. 21+. This is the one
where a man in his seventies and a man in his thirties can both sit at the same table and
actually hear each other.
10 min
The Driskill Bar1886
Cattle-baron Romanesque, marble, taxidermy, and a longhorn over the bar. Walk
over, have one, walk back — the whole thing fits in an hour. Open to 11pm Sunday, 1am
Friday, no booking needed for the bar.
20 min
Texas State Capitolfree
Free guided tours run every 15–30 minutes and last about 40; Sunday
noon–4:15pm, so the arrival day works. The dome is deliberately taller than the one
in Washington, a fact Texans will raise unprompted.
ride
Bullock Texas State History Museumdaily 10–5
1.5 miles, so a car ride rather than a walk. $18 for seniors, $22 otherwise. Two
hours is right. Given Grandpa Byrne, the 20th-century and military galleries are the ones
to spend the time in.
skip
The Congress Avenue bats
Every guidebook sends you there at dusk. The colony migrates out in
October — in November you would be standing on a bridge looking at nothing.
BThe AlbertFredericksburg · nights 2 & 3
4 min
National Museum of the Pacific Warmonday only
Closed Tuesdays — so this has to be Monday 9 November, and it
is the single reason to be in this town. The only museum in the continental US devoted solely
to the Pacific war, built around the boyhood hotel of Admiral Nimitz, who was born
here. Six acres, a submarine, the Japanese Garden of Peace. $20 for seniors, and
free for WWII veterans. The Pacific Combat Zone shuts at 3pm, so go in the morning;
budget three hours and buy online ahead.
0 min
Inside the hotelopened 2025
Three things, all in the building: The Pharmacy, the 1906 Keidel pharmacy
turned limestone-walled coffee room with Albert Keidel’s own watercolours on the walls
— the slow-morning answer. The Saloon, in the 1888 White Elephant building, with
live music. Junebug’s, barbecue in the courtyard from a Memphis in May grand
champion. Ask the concierge which nights have music; they do not publish it.
2 min
Easy Company Books & Coffeemon–thu 10–7
An independent bookshop named for the WWII Easy Company, heavy on history and
memoir, with proper coffee, one block away, open on a Monday night. It is almost
suspiciously well matched to the two of you.
3 min
Elk Store Winery & Distillerymon–thu 1–9
Small-batch moonshine, gin and whiskey off a handmade Kentucky copper still in an
1895 building, with a covered back patio and a fire pit. Hours are from a listing rather than
their own site — worth a phone call first.
1 min
Fredericksburg Brewing Co.oldest in texas
Directly across the street. Brewing on site since 1994, with a biergarten. Not a
destination — but it is thirty seconds from the door and open Monday, which in this town
counts for a great deal.
skip
Hondo’s on Main
The town’s best-known music bar, and closed Monday and Tuesday —
exactly our two nights. Pioneer, two minutes away at 212 E Main, is one of the few that
is open: Tuesday to 10pm. (Berkman Books, still in the older guides, has closed for good.)
CHotel EmmaSan Antonio · nights 4 & 5
0 min
The Libraryfree
The old glass-walled fermentation room, now 3,700 books floor to ceiling
— Texas history, art, vintage brewing manuals. Take one up to your room, no checkout,
nobody asks. Complimentary coffee in the leather chairs in the morning. The best slow
start anywhere on this trip, and it costs nothing.
0 min
Sternewirthmon–thu 3pm–12am
The brewhouse tavern under a 25-foot vaulted ceiling, with seating built
inside the original steel fermentation tanks. Walk in for the main room; the tank
alcoves are reservation-only with a minimum spend and hotel guests get first call, so
ask at check-in. The name is the old brewery custom of free beer for men on shift —
a decent story to have ready.
4 min
Jazz, TXtue–thu 5:30–10
A supper-club room in the basement of the old bottling department — jazz,
Texas swing, salsa, founded by a working bandleader. Both our nights work. Treat a
reservation as required: 210-332-9386.
4 min
The Twig Book Shopdaily 10–6
Independent since 1972, with a serious Texana section — the right
shelves to find something on Grandpa Byrne’s era. Forty-five minutes before dinner.
13 min
Museum Reach & the art museumwed/thu 10–5
The quiet northern arm of the River Walk starts at the Pearl and runs down to the
San Antonio Museum of Art in the old Lone Star Brewery — nothing like the crowded
downtown stretch, with suspended fibreglass sunfish under the interstate. $19 for seniors and
for military. Even without going in, the walk down and back is a good leg-stretch.
Wed 11
Veterans Daycheck the date
We are in San Antonio on Veterans Day itself. The big parade is not that
day — the city runs one of the largest in the country on the Saturday, which
in 2026 is 7 November, the day before we arrive. What is here on the 11th is Fort Sam
Houston National Cemetery, fifteen minutes out, which holds a public ceremony each year;
the 2026 time is not published yet — 210-820-3891, worth a call in late October.
The grounds are open sunrise to sunset regardless, and a quiet walk there may suit us better
than a ceremony anyway.
