As everybody knows, Europe has been suffering a very hot weather spell for more than a month now with terrible fires in Greece and other countries plus awful suffering in the deaded heat. Italy is currently very sweaty (July 2023).
I chose this moment to take my Mercedes Vito and head north and one of the great bonuses was the much lower air temperature! I loaded up the Honda CRF250L and then left my garage in Tramonti on Sunday morning at about 0930, on the Friday I had fully checked the van oil, water plus tyre pressures and all was good (I also topped her up with the dreaded ad blue which lasts about 5k kms).
I struggled to cover 700 kilometres on Sunday as the motorway was totally overcrowded and the air temperature was horrible. I was lucky to get past Roma easily (36 degrees) and I stopped to get some sandwiches and drinks at Orte and I continued north. The next major obstacles heading north are Firenze (Florence) and Bologna. On Sunday the heavy truck traffic is not allowed to use the motorways and that certainly helps but of course July and August are the major holiday months in Italy so there is always plenty of car traffic USUALLY heavier heading south.
I was fairly lucky again and got through the Firenze chaos fairly quickly (now 37 degrees) and then headed up into the hills towards Bologna. This is the real pinch point of Italy as the road rises up to get over the Apennine mountains and the motorway is only two lanes each way so the commercial traffic often fills the inside lane leaving only one lane for the cars so all car traffic must travel at the speed of the slowest driver!! Also, this road can be covered with snow in the winter and chains OR winter tyres are obligatory during the winter months.
The drive went well and I was soon past Bologna (about 35 degrees) and onto the lovely three and four lane stretch of motorway which heads from Mantova up to Milan. However the van was struggling to keep her speed up (I generally set the cruise control to 140 kph) simply due to the very high air temperature coming into the engine plus the higher load imposed by the aircon system to cool the cabin. The traffic was still heavy but not too bad. So I decided to stop for the night in Fiorenzuola as I did not wish to get to the Mont Blanc Tunnel on a Sunday evening as the waiting times can be several hours, so much better to get there early the next morning.
I phoned ahead and then stopped for the night at the lovely Mathis Hotel in Fiorenzuola town centre having filled the van with fuel for an early departure.
The following morning I left Fiorenzuola at 4am and drove to Cambridge. WONDERFUL French motorways!!!
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