Packing madness

Well, it's Good Friday and only one day to go. We've nearly packed everything, and by the size of our cases, I think we really have packed everything!

All our routes and stop-overs are planned. Start Sunday morning on the Eurotunnel arriving Calais at 12.00. First night stop at Metz about 5ish. Next day the big push through France, Switzerland and into Italy. Planning our route through Switzerland proved interesting with a choice of going directly south through the St Gotthard tunnel and face rather large queues (it is Easter weekend after all), or travel further east past Zurich (and around what looks like a nice bypass through the Uetliberg Tunnel on the N4/N20) and then down through the St Bernardino tunnel). Finally decided on the route via Zurich. Hopefully arriving Monday evening in Milan after approx 7-8 hours driving. Tuesday should be a fairly leisurely drive south-east to Bologna then south towards Rome and Sutri.

If you're interested in route planning there are a number of interesting sites that can assist:

1. maps.google.co.uk. Very flexible system, allowing you to change your route by dragging the route around on the interactive map. The only downside are the maps aren't accurate. The bypass around Zurich does not exist yet (even though the copyright says 2009) and Google places our hotel in Milan in the wrong place even though it has the correct address. The printed route is very impressive, allowing you to add in maps of junctions and screenshots of streetview where available.
2. www.routes.tomtom.com. A beta system which would be very good if you could alter the route once planned. All the mapping is their own which makes for some very accurate routes.
3. www.viamichelin.co.uk. Another good system allowing some route alterations, but the printed routes are a little confusing to say the least. The wife hated it. However, the list includes an estimate of tolls and fuel costs.
4. www.theaa.com/route-planner/index.jsp. A system based around Google Maps but with less flexibility. However UK routes look very comprehensive.
5. www.multimap.co.uk. This is another good planner with mapping from Microsoft Virtual Earth. You can add multple 'via's to alter your route, but I wasn't keen on the routes printed out.

Out of all the planners I found Google the most flexible. Your mileage may vary (... sorry couldn't help it!).