alan h's activity

Personally,  I'd take the following route.

Get on the autostrada and head past Milan  and on towards Lake Maggiore and up past Gravellona Toce and into Switzerland (buy vignette at Swiss border Post or Petrol Station by border).

Through the Simplon Pass - well worth the trip for the scenery  - and on past Lake Geneva. 

We then go across the border into France near Pontarlier and then go towards Lyon and on the autoroute to Calais.

Where to stay -

Stop 3.  I recommend Hotel la Paix in Bapaume - great restaurant and good breakfast, and handy for Calais

Stop 2  We stay in Beze.  Couple of fair hotels including Hotel Le Bourgignon , but last time we stayed at a B&B just outside, called the Moulin de Belle Isle.

Stop 1..  Swiss hotels tend to be expensive.  We stay in the Ibis in Sion Est - nothing fancy but good food and clean bedrooms .

You however should look at the route and decide your stops.

Planning the route is half the fun of the trip- yours sounds great.

The route to Calais from Padua is about 800 miles.  

Assuming you stay within legal speed limits, allowing for sensible stops each day, you'll average about 55 mph overall, so (including sensible stops) you'll be on the road for approx 15 hours.  

If you stop overnight at anywhere like Bapaume before Calais, that will leave a 90 minute drive to Calais, and an acceptable drive on to W Midlands.

That leaves about 13+ hrs travelling, which means about 6hrs to 7hrs each day on the way from Padua.

Is that acceptable, or would an extra overnight make it a more pleasant journey?

(I know some will say "just blast through and do it as quickly as possible:, but you need to consider who is travelling (number and ages) and is driving shared etc etc)

What sort of route do you want?

Fast, scenic, cheap, how many overnight stops, how many hours driving a day?  etc etc.

More info please.

Do you have a friend in Italy who can pay the bill, at any Italian Post Office, if you email them the signed F24 and transfer the cash to their bank account?

?

Ugo

Grazie  Mille

Thanks for that Ugo

However, what I am looking for is a bookshop that I can order a specific book, such as "The secret diary of Boris Johnson aged 13....yrs", for delivery to my English friend near Bergamo. 

I can do it from England with Waterstones, who will post it from UK,   BUT there is the distinct possibility that my friend would be asked, on delivery, for import taxes. (And the postage from UK  would be more than the book)

If you want someone to sort out all the train tickets for a trip down Italy, Ffestiniog Travel sorted all mine out.  They do charge, it cost me about £47 in fees for our return journey, but I feel it eas well worth it. 

""Maybe the way I entered it--formatting for phone numbers is always a problem."

Did you post it without the 0039 prefix  and without any gaps between the figures?

According to the OECD, the average salary in Italy is 35,561 EUR per year or 2,963 EUR per month. This figure is 23.17% less than the global OECD average. However, the average income is considered a good salary for a single individual living in Italy.

So -   that's €3000 a month for 1 person!!!!!