685 GB electrical equipment in Italy

Hello
Just about to move our stuff across to Rome- will most electrical equipment work if we use "travel adaptors"? Also, Ive been told that British TV sets wont work in Italy. Does anyone know if its true?
Lastly, am driving down. Very interested to read recent comments about different routes. I was planning to go down to Toulon and ferry across to Citivecchia and then onto Rome. Has anyone done this and whats it like?

Many thanks

Category
General chat about Italy

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 07/01/2005 - 02:12

Hi

All electrical equipment will work in Italy, but I dont know about T.V's as we didn't bring ours. We changed all the plugs on our electrical equipment so as not to mess around with adaptors. Brico, OBI, all sell plugs as do most of the major supermarkets. Make sure you buy plugs that fit your sockets, sounds daft but for some higher powered items we have three pin plugs for irons etc.

One bit of advice the vacum cleaners are not as good choice as the UK, so bring your own. Can offer any advice for travelling to Rome, as we live in Le Marche, and did the Calais, Rheims, Balse, Bologna, Ancona route

Good luck with the move

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 07/01/2005 - 03:47

Hi,
Our UK TV can get pictures but no sound, so leave yours behind. Or maybe it's a bonus not having the sound as Italian programmes so awful! The Italian TV's are different in some technical blah.....glad we brought it though as it has an internal video and UK friends send us the odd film or TV programme about people moving to Italy.......

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 07/01/2005 - 04:08

As the others have said UK electrical goods will generally work. However,
* TV's depend upon the signal group, Italy is different to UK, but some UK sets are multi group and will work, so check yours out before you use up valuable space with a possibly redundant set.
* Video recorders do work but will only record from Italian tv if they are PAL (not that there is much worth recording, but you never know!)
* The plumbing for washing machines is different, in Italy there is only one water inlet.
* If bringing UK table lamps bring a good supply of bulbs as you cannot get bayonet bulbs here
* Where there are groups of electrical appliances together ie stereo systems, computers bring sufficient adapters/extension cables then you only have to change the one plug
* It is also worth bringing a few 3 to 2 pin adapters to use until you get around to changing plugs
* There are 2 types of Italian plugs, 'fat' pin for things up to 16A and 'thin' pins for <10A, adapters will convert from thin to fat but not the reverse.

When we travelled to Rome we drove down the west coast it was not a bad journey but there were no tunnel issues. Have not done the sea route it will probably take longer but will be much more relaxing.

Good luck
Anne2

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 07/01/2005 - 11:07

Regarding the TV issue, your UK set should work with a satellite receiver, VHS or DVD as long as it is connected using a SCART cable, rather than through the arial socket.
If you have a UK Freeview digital-terrestrial box, try bringing it, since Italy now has DTV. In theory it should work, but I'm not 100% sure. Has anyone else tried one?