No pictures I’m afraid, but here’s the story of my first trip to Italy.
My first trip to Europe is easy to remember as it was during the week of The Herald of Free Enterprise Disaster that took place just off the Belgian Coast, to be honest I did have second thoughts about ever getting on another ferry after seeing the stricken ship laying on its side in the cold dark waters of The English Channel, but as you’ll see, I overcame my fears and went on to spend over ten years getting on and off of ferries crossing between different countries.
So to business and my first ever long distance trip abroad. I was employed by a small company based in South East London, my job, apart from the odd local trip abroad was delivering the trailers brought in from Europe by the other, more experienced drivers at the company. This was about to change and it came about purely by chance, one of the drivers, Jack, had a breakdown in France and he needed a part to get going again. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and the boss told me to go home, get my passport and a bag of clothes as I was taking the trailer I had just loaded in Wrexham, North Wales to Italy, stopping off to meet up with Jack and help him to get going again.
Now it may seem a bit extreme taking a part out to France, they have garages over there, why couldn’t they come out and fix the broken down truck? Two reasons, one was money, French Garages are notoriously expensive, especially if you’re English and secondly time. It was Thursday evening when Jack first started having problems, all the local garages were closed and there was a good chance that nobody would even take a look at his problem until Monday. I could be there by Saturday morning, spend a couple of hours fixing the problem and we would be in Italy late Saturday night ready for Custom’s Clearance on Monday morning.
First I had to get there, I had been to France before, as a teenager on a school trip to Paris, it didn’t really prepare for me for my new career as a Long Distance Trucker. I had been abroad in a truck before so it wasn’t as daunting as it could’ve been and I was running on pure adrenalin, I had been waiting for this moment my whole life, I wouldn’t have swapped it for a lottery win. After a quick dash home to get my stuff and all important passport I set off from the yard in my trusty steed, a Daf 2800 coupled to a 40’ Tilt trailer full of waste packaging from Tetra Pak, it was going to Collodi in the province of Lucca, just up the road from Pisa and its leaning tower.
I weaved my way through the busy streets of London and with a huge smile on face I joined the A2 and headed for the Ferry terminal at Dover in Kent. I had made a few trips over the water before so I knew the procedure once I arrived at the Port of Dover.
The first step was to pull into the parking area and go to your agent, these guys prepare the Custom’s documents that you need to take a load out of the country, you then go to the Check In Desk of the Ferry Operator, in this case Sealink. Once there you are provisionally booked onto a ferry then join the queue for Custom’s clearance, this could take ten minutes or ten hours, depending on how many people were in front of you, luckily for me I was in possession of the correctly stamped documents in under an hour and with them I could now confirm my booking on the ferry with Sealink and then return to my truck and go to my assigned lane to wait for loading onto the ferry.
Whilst waiting for the ferry to dock after its previous voyage from the Port of Calais I went for a wander around the shops in the Ferry Terminal, they sold the usual overpriced snacks and beverages and some last minute items that, according to the advertising, you could not leave home without. I had everything I needed so the advertising was a waste of time on me, but I did buy a newspaper and a copy of TRUCK magazine so I had some reading material during my breaks on this trip. An announcement over the PA system meant that I had to rejoin my vehicle and await instructions for embarkation.
I was directed into the lower deck of the Sealink Ferry, St Christopher and following the directions of the deckhand I pulled up a couple of feet from the truck in front of me. I then made sure my parking brake was applied, you have to see the damage an unrestrained truck can do to itself and the vehicles around it to believe it, but I’m sure you can guess it’s pretty catastrophic. Once I was happy that all would be where I left it I locked the doors and made my way upstairs to the Driver Only Restaurant for a late supper. The restaurant offers discounted meals to freight drivers, they’re not bad quality and are very reasonably priced, the restaurant also offers sanctuary from the rest of the passengers, after a long day’s work the last thing you want to be surrounded by are hordes of screaming kids in holiday mode.
During the voyage across the Channel I visited the Duty Free shop to stock up on cheap cigarettes and also visited the Bureau de Change and changed up my British Pounds into French Francs and Italian Lira, again freight drivers are rewarded, in this case there is no commission charged on the exchange. I have a fuel card to buy diesel, but need cash for tolls in both France and Italy and for the Alpine Tunnel crossing between the two countries. I spent the remainder of the crossing in the Driver’s Restaurant before rejoining the Daf for disembarkation upon arrival in Calais.
The procedure now was slightly different to my previous trips, on those I was using ‘The Corridor’ this is a stretch of road, now a multilane highway, that hugs the coastline of France and runs to the border with Belgium at Adinkereque. In those days before the opening of the European Borders, transport was highly regulated and you needed a permit to drive to or transit most countries. France was one such place, unless you were using The Corridor and as I was going straight through France I needed to go into the terminal in Calais and present my Customs docs and Permit to the Customs (Douanes) here I would get a stamp on my permit and all my T-forms, these are the Customs docs for my load. I would have to check that this was done correctly as without a stamp confirming my entry into the country I would not be able to exit it at the other end and that would turn out to be a rather expensive mistake.
All was well and I returned to my wagon and pulled up to the waiting Douanes so that he could extract some money from me, what he was supposed to do was check that I had no more than 200ltrs of fuel on board, but that practice was forgotten long ago, now all he was waiting for was 20FF for ‘coffee’ the term commonly used for what can only be described as a bribe. Although it sounds rather bad, it actually worked in my favor; fuel was more expensive in France, especially as it was almost impossible to recover tax on fuel bought outside of your home country in those days. Seeing as though I was carrying almost ten times the allowed amount my boss had made sure I was aware of this process and had no problem with paying the 20FF.
It was now time to make my way out of the port area and find somewhere to park for the night, I was heading into unfamiliar territory now and after consulting my map I had decided on parking in the first service area on the Autoroute that runs south from Calais, but having spoken to a fellow driver on board the ferry I learned that parking would be next to impossible at this time of night, so I only got as far as the exit gate for the port and parked there.
The beep beep of my alarm heralded the start of a new day and I walked back to the ferry terminal for a quick wash and breakfast of coffee and croissants, at first I enjoyed it, but then I wished I had taken a ferry this morning and as well as being able to shower, I could also have indulged in a Full English Breakfast, oh well, a lesson learned. I returned to my truck and checked my oil and water levels and had a walk around to check that nothing had been stolen during the night. A lot of trailers are shipped over unaccompanied and the driver dropping the trailer off always removes all the light bulbs and lenses from the trailer, as these are a pretty standard item and as my trailer had the same type it would have been easy for a driver arriving at the port to resupply his kit while I slept soundly, this time I had everything I started out with, but bitter experience had led me to check in the first place. Usually I remove everything that can be stolen when I park up, but the excitement of this trip had made me forget about it the previous night.
I filled out my Tachograph Chart, this is a disc that is inserted into the speedometer (Tachograph) of the truck, simply speaking it’s a pie chart divided into twenty four segments and it makes one revolution every 24hrs, as the vehicle speeds up a needle rises within the unit and scores the chart showing the speed, as the chart turns it records the time driven. Driving hours are strictly regulated in Europe, the maximum allowed driving time is 9hrs per day with an allowance to raise it to ten hours twice a week, it’s a lot more complicated than that and there are many different rules concerning daily and weekly rest periods, but basically I get 9hrs a day behind the wheel and I have to take a break of at least 45mins after four and a half hours driving, at night I must park for eleven hours, this can be reduced to nine on three occasions, but must be compensated for by adding the missed time to other rest periods within a specific time. In reality for me it is now academic, I’m now going to be a full time continental driver so I spend hardly any time driving in the UK, where an infringement would likely end up with me in court being fined or having my license suspended.
Once I’m in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal or Greece a donation to the coffee fund of any Police Officer that stops me will be the end of any problems that any excessive hours should cause me. It may seem a bit ‘cowboy’ but that’s the way it was back then, we stopped to eat when hungry, stopped to sleep when tired and spent the rest of the time driving. Some people took it to extremes, but I’ve always had a strong self preservation instinct, so even though the law was being broken, I never felt that I was putting anybody in any danger.
I feeling as fresh as a daisy now and after a good night’s sleep even the thirstiest Gendarme would be left wanting a coffee had they stopped me. I was 100% legal as I snaked my way through the streets of Calais and joined the A26 Autoroute towards the junction of the A1 which would take me to Paris and my first major landmark of the trip. Here the road runs through farmland although in the recent past it had been the scene of many battles during World War’s one and two, many of the towns bypassed by the Autoroute have huge cemeteries full of crosses for the brave souls that lost their lives so that we could enjoy our freedom. No matter how many times I would drive down this road in the years to come, the thought that the fields either side of me had once been running with the blood of young men my own age was never far away.
Twenty or so miles south of Calais I would encounter the notorious St Omer peage (toll booth) here the Gendarmes would lie in wait and pounce on drivers in their quest for coffee money, again I had nothing to fear, but the sight of armed police who speak a different language is somewhat unnerving, especially as my truck is British and therefore has the steering wheel on the right side, this means that to get my ticket from the peage I have to get out of the cab and walk around to the machine, which being in France is set up for vehicles with their steering wheel on the left side. As it happens I’m greeted with a cheery ‘Bonjour’ from the Gendarme in my lane and I jump back into the big Daf and get out of there before he has a change of heart.
I don’t have a clue where to stop for a decent meal and I take a chance at the service station near Peronne, I learned a little French at school, so ordering lunch is pretty easy, but there was surprise to come when I got to the cash register, the lady behind the desk asked me if I was a Chauffeur Routier, this I didn’t understand, so in perfect English she asked if I was a lorry driver, when I said yes she applied a discount to my bill, how very civilized!
After lunch I rejoined the Autoroute and resumed my journey south, a few miles before Paris I came across another Peage, this time it was Gendarme free, but not free in any other way, it wasn’t cheap either, I began to worry that my running money wouldn’t stretch far enough, I was barely a quarter of the way through France and had just used a significant chunk of my funds to get this far. All the same I was looking forward to seeing Paris having spent a week there on a school-trip as a teenager. This time was almost going to be more educational, back then I was more concerned with sneaking off to have a cigarette and play the latest video games than seeing the sights, now I was eager to see the city in all its glory. Just to the north of the urban sprawl is the Aeroport Charles De Galle, the runways of which are either side of the Autoroute, meaning that there is a taxiway that runs over the top of the multilane highway. As I approached the tunnel a 747 Jumbo Jet was taxiing across just a few feet above me, now that’s a strange phenomenon, usually when you’re underneath a plane it’s miles above you in the sky, with only a few feet of concrete separating hundreds of tons of plane from the top of my head it’s a very different experience altogether, I must confess that I held my breath and ducked down, like that would help!
A few miles further on I approached the perimeter road that encompasses Paris, known as the Boulevard Peripherique it is notorious among truck drivers for the behavior of the drivers that use it, there are many urban myths about it, such as your insurance is invalid in the case of a collision and one myth that isn’t a myth at all, this dictates that merging traffic has right of way. I wasn’t aware of this and wondered why nobody was using the far right lane when the other three lanes were all quite busy, I took advantage of the empty lane and it was quite a shock when I passed the first on ramp, nobody slowed down and looked in their mirrors, they just pulled out, but I think some of them were more shocked than I was when they realized that the British Lorry wasn’t moving out of their way, they’re quite demonstrative the Parisiens and I was called number one quite a few times. It was only later that I learned the reason behind it, at first I just assumed it was because I was English, there being no love lost between our two countries. We call them Frogs because they eat Frog’s Legs, they call us Le Rosbif, because we eat Roast Beef, thinking about that, I’m glad I’m not French, I’ll take a nice juicy piece of Sirloin over the scrawny leg of a pond dweller any day and I grew up watching the Muppets, eating poor old Kermit is just wrong……
Luckily for me I had spotted another British Lorry as we approached Le Peripherique, I knew that the company that owned it went to Italy, so that made my mind up to follow him and take the eastern route around the city, I’d looked on the map and that way did seem shorter, but the signs were a little confusing, not just because they were in a different language, they were just not very clear and used a lot of abbreviations, which would be fine had I known which word they were shortening in the first place. The lorry in front knew the way though so I kept him in my sights and took in the scenery, I passed the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre Coeur, I never spotted any cyclists dressed in striped shirts and berets with a string of onions around their neck, but two out of three ain’t bad.
As my unknowing guide and I left the city behind we rejoined the Autoroute and headed south again, after a few miles the lorry in front of me pulled off at an exit, I carried on, I was going to crack on to Macon and spend the night there before finding Jack and his poorly Daf the following morning. The Autoroute is called Le Autoroute du Soleil, the road to the sun, but it wasn’t living up to its name as darkness was falling, it didn’t matter much as there isn’t much to see anyway, just rolling hills and fields of crops, a few hours later I went over a couple of big hills, not quite mountains, but big enough for the load behind me to make its presence felt both climbing the hill and coming down the other side. Not knowing the roads I was being over cautious, other lorries were flying past me coming down, but I remembered some advice from my Dad, he used to say that you can come down a hill too slow a million times, but you’ll only go down too fast the once, I knew it was true too, I had proved the theory many times on skateboards and bicycles and have the scars to prove it.
I stopped for the night in the service station at Macon, it had been an exciting day and it had taken its toll on me, so I made a cup of tea and went to bed. The following morning I woke up before my alarm and after a quick rinse in the bathrooms I got the map out to try and find the town where Jack was broken down, I had only been told it was near Macon somewhere so I thought I’d ask the people in the service station, I was asking them how to get to Jayat, pronouncing it Jay At, nobody knew what I was talking about it seemed, in the end an old guy asked me in pretty good English if I meant Jayat, pronouncing it Jay ah, with a soft J, I said that could be it, he gave me instructions and I headed in that direction, not before being relieved of an even larger chunk of my running money by the Peage attendant.
Now here I was driving through the French Countryside, I’d always dreamed of this, but in my dreams I had an idea of where I was going, all I had today were some hastily scribbled road numbers from some old French dude, I had a vision of ending up stuck down a dead end road in the middle of nowhere while the old guy sat laughing with his friends telling them the story of how he tricked the cocky young Rosbif. Fortunately Anglo French relations were not harmed, he put me right where I wanted to go, as in the distance I could see a bunch of trucks parked up and one of them was exactly the same as the one I was driving, I had made it, without any kind of address or directions, and I had made it in good time too, Jack wasn’t expecting me until the afternoon, yet here I was pulling up alongside him before most sensible people were having their morning cup of tea or coffee.
Jack was already awake and as he wasn’t in his cab I assumed he was in the restaurant, or Routiers as they’re commonly referred too, this meant I had to walk into the Dragon’s Den, here was a place full of proper International Truckers, and it was like being the new kid in class, so I was a little nervous to say the least, my fears were unfounded, I expected a bit of teasing about taking the wrong turn on the South Circular Road, but I was introduced to everyone around the table and soon they were all offering me advice, then the tales started, I’m quite sure most of them were exaggerated, but I could’ve sat and listened all day. Jack, however, had other ideas, we had a long way to go today and still had a fair bit of work to do before we set off, so we donned our overalls and set to work on fixing the Daf.
In less than an hour we had the Daf up and running again, taken a shower and had a farewell coffee with my new found friends, a couple of them had come out to help, but Jack was well on top of the job, so they had sauntered back into the Routiers to resume their story telling. It was now time to hit the road again and we fired up the big diesels and in a cloud of dust we pulled out of the parking area and got under way. I had taken the time to study the map while we were at Jayat, so it was quite a shock when we went straight past the signs for the Autoroute and carried on driving down the skinny road, we carried on for a few more miles and came into the town of Bourg en Bresse, according to my map we should bypass this to the east, but here we were going straight through the city centre and heading south west on a road that, as far as I could gather from the map on the engine cover next to me, would lead us into the middle of nowhere, the big blue line on the map was getting further and further away and I was concerned enough to consider flashing my lights and getting Jack to stop, that’s when a convoy of Italian trucks heading the other way came past, so I thought I’d avoid making myself look silly and just follow Jack, after all he’d been doing the job for over twenty years, he must know a short cut or two by now.
Four hours of those skinny roads, through countless small villages, in the shadows of the foothills of the Alps, through gorges and alongside meandering rivers before making the steady climb up towards the Tunnel du Frejus, if the signs were correct, and pulled into Modane, the drive had been a lot more enjoyable than the previous day when I’d been following the big blue line in the map, it was also a lot cheaper, the only toll we’d paid was at Chambery and that was only 6FF, about the price of a coffee (unless it was for a Gendarme) We also bought tickets for the Tunnel here, you can buy them at the Peage further up the mountain, but there a pair of one way tickets is more expensive than a return ticket and Jack explained that if I loaded back for England with a load that kept my gross weight under 28tons, I could transit Switzerland and avoid the expensive tunnel altogether, keeping the single ticket for the next trip down, I questioned whether I could use the other half of the return in the same way, but apparently a return means just that, you must go and come back, not go or come back twice in the same direction, man this stuff is complicated, it goes to show why companies require drivers with experience.
Whilst in Modane we also went through both French and Italian Customs, which was rather strange, Italy was still a way down the road and the other side of a 19km road tunnel, quite clearly so were the Italian Customs men as the booth was unattended, which could cause a problem, we needed a stamp on our T-Forms or we wouldn’t be able to clear customs prior to unloading, luckily they’re an enterprising bunch the Italians and they had thoughtfully left a stamp hanging on a piece of string so that we could stamp our own paperwork! Jack also used it to repeatedly stamp his Italian Permit, his was a multi trip permit and they were only allocated if you could prove that you had use for them, the easiest way to do this is send a fully stamped one back to the offices of the IRTU in Newcastle upon Tyne back in the UK. Depending on quotas sometimes you would offer the Customs Man a ‘coffee’ not to stamp your permit or to stamp it multiple times, luckily for wet behind the ears me, I only had a single trip permit so it was not an issue, anyway Jack had stamped his permit so many times the ink had almost gone dry, so I never had a choice anyway.
From there we climbed the last few miles towards the tunnel, still a long way from the summit, it was called the Tunnel du Frejus on this side, but halfway through it became the Trafforo del Frejus as it was now in Italy, I like the Italian version better, for one it rolls off the tongue easier and it also sounds further away from England and for me, the longer the trip, the better it is. The main route from England to Italy would be using the Mont Blanc Tunnel, or Monte Bianco in Italian, again I prefer the latter version for the same reasons as before. Jack explained to me that this was the boy’s route, the real men went Frejus, he reckoned that anyone could follow a big blue line in a map, and my being there was living proof of that! But it takes a bit more to run the Routes National, by way of compensation for the extra work required you get the benefit of seeing the country a bit more, the Autoroutes bypass the towns, so all you see is the road itself and the odd industrial facility, but on the old roads you go through the cities and smaller towns and in doing so you also get the opportunity to stop at proper restaurants rather than eating at service areas, running the Nationals is also far cheaper as there are hardly any toll roads…
There were other reasons for using Frejus, Customs officers and truck drivers in both France and Italy were notorious for going on strike and blocking the borders or roads respectively, Frejus was nowhere near as busy as Mont Blanc, so to have the biggest impact the strikes always hit there first and hardest. Another thing to consider was the weather, to get to Mont Blanc there are more small mountains in the way and it’s at a higher elevation than Frejus, so the snow is worse up there, and avalanches are not uncommon, it’s also used my many more vehicles, so if there’s a problem it’ll be a much bigger problem. He had already sold the idea to me back at the point where he mentioned sorting the men from the boys; I was going to be a Frejus user from now on if I had a choice in the matter.
We left Modane and climbed the final few miles to the entrance of the tunnel, a brief stop at Customs to ensure we had visited Modane was all that stood in my way now, soon I would be in Italy for the first time. The tunnel entrance is pretty unremarkable, just like any tunnel really; just a hole in the side of some rock, but once inside this one is a little different to any tunnel I’d ever been through before. Those had been short tunnels under a river, this one was much longer. Fifteen minutes later we emerged from the darkness into Italy and Jack pulled into the service area that occupies the same area as the Italian and French Customs on this side of the tunnel. It was coffee time, not for Customs, but for us.
This was to be a defining moment in my life, as here I was introduced to the Latte. As the new guy it was my job to not only buy the coffee, I had to order it too, Jack had told me that I would learn a lot more if I was thrown in at the deep end, so he was to offer no assistance at all when it came to speaking to the natives. He did suggest the Latte, but it was the word that followed it that would test my Italian pronunciation, the full title of a Latte is Latte Macchiato, I hit the jackpot and pronounced it Mak e ar toe and got a pat on the back as my reward. After the exchange of many thousand Lira I received what can only be described as heaven in a glass, a double shot of Espresso topped off with steamed milk. It was that thunderbolt moment when you fall in love and it was to be a love of a lifetime, as I write this a quarter of a century later, I have a Latte in the cupholder next to me.
The café was, as I said, at the entrance to the tunnel on the Italian side, the town was Bardoneccia and has since that time been the host of some Winter Olympic events, fortunately it was not winter now and the weather was glorious, we never had time to take advantage of it as our destination was still a good way away and we had to get going so that we would arrive tonight. Trucks are banned from the roads in Italy on Sunday, the ban starts at 7am so our miles had to be covered today or it would mean we would have to get a really early start on Monday in order to arrive in time for Custom’s Clearance in the morning. With that in mind we started our descent of the mountain.
Just like the French side, the road was a gentle slope, I had expected the mountain roads to be very steep and full of hairpins as the road hugged the edge of the mountain, but here I was doing almost 60mph on a multilane highway, I really couldn’t see what all the fuss was about…….until I entered a tunnel 20kms down the road, as we exited the tunnel Jack had slowed almost to a crawl, at first I thought there was a junction or some construction, but then the reason for the pedestrian pace became apparent, now we were on a proper mountain road and it was a long way down.
I downshifted the big Daf until I was in the fifth of the sixteen gears available and had the engine brake on all the way down, even this wasn’t enough to hold back the 38 tons of truck and I needed the occasional dab on the brakes to keep the engine from over-revving. As well as being a lot steeper, the road also narrowed considerably and on one side there was a sheer drop of many thousand feet, the other side was the jagged rock face of the mountain, neither side offered much relief in case of brake failure so we remained at a crawl, on some of the tighter curves we had to stop as the road was too narrow for two trucks to pass each other. Normal practice is to give way to the trucks coming up the hill so that they can maintain their speed, but on the mountain roads that is reversed, using the brakes too often will result in them overheating, when this happens the friction material on the brake shoes becomes shiny and performance is reduced significantly, compounded by the drums expanding and moving further away from the drums, simply put, if you get brake fade on a mountain, it will all in tears. As we were descending we should’ve had priority, but some of the trucks climbing the mountain were already committed to the bends as we approached, so we had no choice but to give way.
After an hour of this we eventually reached the valley floor, shifted up through the gears and got up to cruising speed again. The speed limit for trucks is 80kph (50mph) in Italy and is strictly enforced, the Polizia Stradale are always on the look out for coffee money, and after sampling a Latte Macchiato who could blame them! Soon we joined the Tangenziale in Turin; this is similar to Le Peripherique, only crazier. Italians are genetically designed to drive as fast as possible at all times, it doesn’t matter how old they are, what vehicle they’re driving or what the traffic and weather conditions are, they will, without exception, have their right foot flat to the mat, and I love them for it.
From Turin we made our way south on the Autostrada, which is the Italian version of a tolled multilane highway, through Alessandria towards Genoa, here we head down the coast road along the Italian Riviera to our destination of Viareggio. At first the road takes you through rolling hills full of Vineyards where they grow the Grapes that make the fabulous wines that Italy is famous for, but as we approach Genoa the road once again becomes mountainous and as we follow the Mediterranean Coastline we’re either in a tunnel or on a bridge, the feats of engineering are spectacular and when you consider that they were built long ago with very primitive equipment it’s an even more outstanding achievement.
Night had fallen by this time, and it was a weird sensation entering the tunnels with their overhead lights and then exiting onto a bridge with just the dark sky above and the lights from small dwellings many hundreds of feet below, before going into another tunnel. It’s also very hilly and Italy has a truck combination that is not used anywhere else, known as Millipedes, they’re a four axle truck pulling a four axle trailer, they’re not considered loaded until you can’t possibly get anything else on them and they’re very old trucks, so not the most powerful, so as well as resembling a Millipede in looks, they also travel uphill at about the same speed. In the tunnels trucks are not allowed to use the left lane, but being Italy, nobody takes any notice of the signs and unless you are unlucky enough to encounter a Police Car using the same stretch of road there is no fear of being caught as the bridge/tunnel layout of the road means that there is nowhere for them to lay in wait and extract coffee money from you, they also make it easy to spot them when they’re on the road as they drive around with their blue lights flashing on the roof all the time.
Soon we pulled off the Autostrada at our exit and approached the toll booth, the guy in the booth took my ticket off me and started talking to me, I said in my best Italian ‘No understand’ and he asked me in English if I wanted to pay the toll for a motorcycle and we would split the difference between that price and the cost of a truck, there’s a right way to do things, a wrong way and then there’s the Italian way! I paid the truck price, much to his annoyance as I had to produce receipts accounting for what I spent from the running money. From there we entered the city of Viareggio and I followed Jack into the car park of a supermarket, this was to be our home for the night, the following day and we would also park here while Customs cleared our load.
With no driving to do the next day we took full advantage of the hospitality at the restaurant where we dined that evening and staggered back to our trucks just before the birds started their dawn chorus. A few hours later I was awoke by the hustle and bustle that can only be found in an Italian town, horns were blaring constantly as drivers all tried to be the first one to the next traffic light and the first one to pull off when the light changed to green, that’s if they stopped at the red light in the first place.
We had no driving to do as our destination was only a short walk away, Jack told me to wear shorts and bring a towel with me, I assumed we were going to find somewhere for a morning wash, but instead I found myself at a bar on the beach, this international lorry driving was just getting better and better. We spent the day alternating between laying on the beach doing what red blooded men do in the circumstances and eating fantastic food in the beachfront cafes, to support the local economy we also tried out a few of the local beers, I hope they enjoyed my contributions as much as I did. During the day Jack also put me straight on a few things about trucking in Italy. The first being do not ever use the old roads in the country, if you can get to where you’re going by following the big blue line on the map, go that way, even if it’s much longer, it will be far quicker. Italian roads are very straight and direct, but they were built for Roman Soldiers to march on, not for big trucks to drive down and unlike France where the speed limit on the Routes Nationale is only slightly lower than on the Autoroutes, in Italy the limit is much lower and you just cannot make good progress on them. Another useful piece of advice concerned the flashing of headlamps, when an Italian flashes their lights at you it doesn’t mean they’re letting you pull out, it means get out of my way, a blast on the horn means much the same thing most of the time, at other times they just do it because they’re Italian!
Before retiring for the night Jack told me to put all my Customs documents in a shopping bag and place it under my windscreen wiper, the agent would come by early on Monday morning and take them away to his office, do whatever he did with them and present them to the Dogana (Customs) on my behalf, when they did whatever they did with them they would stamp them and the agent would return them to me so that I could then go to my delivery and get unloaded. I was all for this system as it meant I needn’t get up early and after last night’s consumption that was a good thing.
The agent returned shortly before lunchtime and Jack and I said our farewells and went our separate ways, it would be many months before I would meet up with him again, such is the nature of driving trucks for a living. Without a blue line on my map that went anywhere near my delivery point I headed into the hills towards my destination of Collodi. I soon learned the hard way why it was not a good idea to get off the Autostrada, the roads were narrow and the villages they pass through were small and the bends were really tight. Slow the progress may have been, but it was every wasted minute, the villages were beautiful, none more so than Collodi itself, the author of the Pinocchio stories took his name from the town where he lived when he wrote them and every window had a monument to the little wooden boy in it. There were also gift shops galore, although they were not at all Disney-like and were very much in keeping with their surroundings. My delivery point was on the other side of the town and I pulled in and set about dismantling the Tilt trailer so that the forklift driver could unload the bales of waste packaging.
A Tilt trailer was the standard trailer for international transport; in basic terms it’s a giant rectangular tent which covers the deck of the trailer, it can be sealed by a cord that runs around its base so that you can satisfy Custom’s requirements. If you have ever put up a forty foot long, thirteen foot high and eight foot wide tent in the wind you have some idea of the work involved, if you haven’t, then thank your lucky stars, they may be very versatile, allowing you to transport almost anything, but they are a complete nightmare to work with. They also have rainmaking properties, it can be a nice sunny day when you pull up, but as soon as you start the process of dismantling one, you can almost guarantee that it will start to rain, I still shudder at the mere thought of one now.
The working day was almost over by the time I had reassembled the trailer after unloading, well for normal nine to five people anyway, mine was about to start in earnest. My next destination was Bassano del Grappa which was on the opposite side of Italy, just to the north west of Venice, I had a lot of driving to do before I got there so I stopped at the first bar and had a Latte Macchiato to help me on my way to the nearest big blue line in my map. I had no idea if I was going the right way, but the route I had chosen looked to be the most direct. I went east towards Florence, then North over the Apennine Mountains to Modena where I went north east to Verona and then east to Padova and finally north to Bassano del Grappa. My Tachograph chart would cost me a large coffee if I had to show it to the Polizia, but thankfully I escaped their clutches, the only coffee that happened was my own and those remarkable Latte Macchiato, and very late that night I pulled into my loading point and went straight to bed, ready for whatever the next day had in store.
To be continued…
I have got the craving now for a Latte Macchiato and a chocolate croissant 
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