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we are planning a delivery to foggia,italy soon and were wondering what the best route is. we will be going dover/calais down through france which im ok with as ive done france, germany, holland before but not switzerland or italy it seems there are vignettes to pay same as germany but not sure about night driving restrictions and full weight permits we will be taking a semi low (just below 4m high!) which is plated 44tonnes does anyone have any tips on switzerland/italy?? thanks steve

Hello Steve,not having been down that way for a while but why swiss may as well down to lyon and up threw frejus ,if your running at full weight swiss could be expencive and this time of year you may well need chains...Plus yer gonna need customs clearance threw swiss in and out which will add to the costs

As Jimbo says the best route depends on your weight, do not be put off by the expense of a custooms document to transit Switzerland as it works out at about 50 euros, what you will need is one of the new plastic account cards for the road tax in Switzerland which can be obtained at the border using any one of the major fuel cards the whole proces takes about 10 minutes. If not too heavy you might like to look at going in to Switzerland via Vall D' Orbe and then entering Italy via the Simplon pass which although being quite a climb is generally considered to be the fastest and cheapest route. In Italy where it says no overtaking do not overtake it can get quite expensive.

Thanks for that, the only reason we were going to go through swiss was it seemed the most direct route! we will not be running that heavy probably just under 30tonnes it was the height of the load that demanded a semi-low to stay under 4m thanks again, steve

as long as you are under 4mts no problem,used to see the car transporters at St Louis letting the tyres down on the cars so they could get below 4mts ...

hopefully this should work

The road pricing system for heavy vehicles came into effect on January 1st, 2001. All Swiss and foreign vehicles weighing more than 3.5 tonnes must pay the tax to use the road networks in Switzerland and neighbouring Liechtenstein.
The road tax is a key element of Switzerland's transport policy aimed at reducing heavy vehicle crossings of the Alps to 650,000 by 2009. In 2003, there were over one million such transits, which was a drop of eight per cent compared with 2000.
In 2004, the charge levied on a 40 tonne truck crossing the Swiss Alps was SFr215. That went up to SFr307 a year later, and if the government does not renege on its plan, will rise to SFr325 in 2008. But road hauliers argue that the tax has not had the desired effect, nor will it have when the rate is increased in two years' time.