alan h's activity

"The ............. motorway tunnel was opened on September 5, 1980. It remains a single bore tunnel with just one lane operating in each direction. It has ................. an additional side gallery between 10 and 18 metres from the main tunnel, having its own independent ventilation system in order to facilitate the cutting of a second tunnel, should future traffic levels require it."  Wikipedia What you see at the Northern Tunnel Portal is the start of the second bore - probably built when they did the first tunnel to make it easier to connect into the road system if, and when, they build the second tunnel [but I doubt if they ever will]

".......... headed towards Mulhouse on the wrong road, which took us up over the hill through a load off towns, very frustrating. ..." I'm not sure you made a mistake - sounds as though you were on the right road - it does go through many villages.  The Nancy - Colmar route is to many drivers a bit easiereasier ---------------- "We did notice the san gottard tunnel is single carriageway (one lane each direction), not sure this is normal as there appears to be two tunnels (dual). should have noted this more carefully as there was a reasonable delay on the return. but a traffic light system at the tunnel entrance ensured it was efficient." There is a second tunnel bore, but it isn't used [not complete?] - all traffic uses the one bore [one carriageway in each direction].  If youhave a half hour or so to spare, the drive over the Gotthard Pass is worth it

Marmite works for some - as does garlic  But not for all Any midge repellent spray with Deet in it seems to work well all the time

"trying to avoid motorway tolls " Rotterdam to Switzerland should be toll free, as long as you avoid the French motorway to Strasbourg.  So either Rotterdam into Germany and down their free motorways to Basle, - or Rotterdam, Belguim, Luxemburg, and on to Nancy and then either Colmar or Mulhouse - all toll free Switzerland costs about £35 for an annual motorway pass [you can go east into Austria instead] and thenm on to italy, where its up to you if you use the autoroutes [I would]

" decided to stay overnight at Dinant, where I have stayed previously and found to be marginally less bad than most towns in Belgium. To anyone contemplating a similar stop - don't." Dinant is not on the route through Belgium - its a minor detour off of it - so the cable works don't affect anyone driving through.  We have stayed at a delightful Chateau outside of Dinant  "Castel LES SORBIERS • rue des Sorbiers 241 • B5543 Heer-sur-Meuse" and would recommend it for a great overnight stay

You can look on the Members Map  [link is at bottom rhs of this page - Map of User Locations] to see who is there

Not sure about pellet costs - but we switched from Bottled to Mains gas when it was available in our village.  No regrets at all

Things are tightening up everywhere.  My Italian friend tells me that he cannot withdraw more than Euro1000 in cash from his bank without "justifying" the reasons for the withdrawal  [Will make the 'Nero' harder to pay for]

"did you find out what caused the holdup? Being in the tunnel going south implies some problem on the road itself - roadworks?" Have been held up going South - yes usually by roadworks, but once or twice by Swiss Border Control - delays have been up to 30 minutes The biggest holdups [up to 75 mins]  have been coming North, usually when Border Control decides to throw a wobbly and stop every car with a non-white face in it.

At the bottom of my 'first' page it lists the 'On Line Users'.  Above that listing is a blue box that says [in my case] "1 of 183" - indicating its page 1 of 183.  Next to that is a 'double arrow symbol' [>>] - click that symbol to go to the next page. If that doesn't work, there is another way.  Look at the address box at the top of the page.  It will say http://www.italymag.co.uk/   . To get to page 2, simply add   ?page=1   to the end of this address  [so you get;-   http://www.italymag.co.uk/?page=1  , and hit Return or Refresh.  Changing the 1 to a 2 takes you to page 3, and so on