italy and back
id not heard from my mate spud(julian) for a while and one saturday morning he turned up in a volvo F6 and asked if id like to go to verona in the school holidays so i said yeah so he said i,ll see ya in a few weeks.so off i goes to get my 6 month passport as you could back then from the post office a little bit of folded card with a pic of me on it.spud picked me up on a wednesday morning and we headed for dover now i must ad that he told me we would be going in a scania 143 his new truck but it never came so italy here we come in the volvo dragging a stepframe box full of furniture for a company called furnishings italia owned by a guy called nat fazzari who now owns the muckley corner bar and resturant on the A5.at dover we had to wait in the wheelhouse cafe for our number to come up to get our papers t forms for swiss etc .them sorted we wait to board the townsend thoresen ferry.boarded and up stairs for dinner in the truckers only resturant i was in my element listening to where all these guys were going and i knew i had to be a continental lorry driver.we get into calais and off to customs and spud slips the man a few french francs for his coffee and were away with no fuss
france was brill i experienced my first routiers only a small place but the food and the people were great and an added bonus they showed woman with there breasts out on tv adverts top stuff
now spud didnt like stopping so when we did it was in a layby and it wernt a 9 hour break either.we trundled through france down to basel in switzerland and that part of france nearing the franco swiss border is amazing mountains valleys lush green fields id never seen anything like it and that poor old F6 dragged us up them mountains and never missed a beat.at the border our trailer was inspected and they found the hinge pins on the trailer doors were not good enough to transit swiss ::)so they sent us round to a haulage company and spud had to pay to get em welded. back to the border and everything is checked given the ok and were away, now swiss is a lovley clean country and fantastic scenery but boy was it expensive.we didnt stop in swiss spud had a unusual attitude to tachos he seemed to like using them as frisbies 
anyway we made chiasso in the evening and it were raining in fact a bloody massive thunderstorm with lightning that went across the sky .anyway border formalties out the way and milan here we come we climbed out of the border and the road is on stilts and once at the top you look down on the parking area
we carried on through the storm and called it a day at some services now spud let me have the bunk and he slept across the seats but unbeknown to him he had kicked on the catwark light and it nailed the batteries so in the morning he gave a swedish driver some packets of ■■■■ for a jump start .next stop verona we go to verona and we met the guy that owned the company at his house as thats were we refuelled he had a fuel pump in an old red telephonebox on his yard/drive we dropped our trailer there and followed him bobtail to the customs yard where our trailer for england was waiting to be cleared.because of the delays we,d had spud had to get back to england pronto.spud dropped me off at the end of my street at 10.30pm on the saturday so we,d done verona and back in 4 days 
that was the last time i saw spud and that were 17 years ago.since passing my class one ive been to france germany belgium luxembourg and holland i never did do italy but if i get chance to i,ll do that route
cheers carl
Nice story, i remember going down to Swiss the old way, before they put the weight limit up, up and down those mountains and very tight twisting turns, i used to love it, beautiful scenery.
It was the bit about the French women with their breasts out that caught my imagination 
Good Story though 
kindle530:
Nice story, i remember going down to Swiss the old way, before they put the weight limit up, up and down those mountains and very tight twisting turns, i used to love it, beautiful scenery.
Me too. Looking in all the windows in baccarat at the crystal chandeliers… then up over the col de bonhomme or col de bussang. I went through the tunnel once at st die… never again~too tight and narrow for me 
Memories eh
Ahh, the St Die Tunnel, definitely a case of elbows in. They took the fun out of it when they slapped the weight limit in. I once got stopped in a control going over the Col de Bussang while grossing ‘slightly’ more than I should have. The lay-by they pulled me into was on a slope, well everything was on the way over the col, and after they had done all the checks they said I could go. Had to start 46 tonnes rolling while making it look like it didn’'t weigh that much, I got away with it.
andthis was also this was a great read as well thanks Carl
Good Read