UK → Bologna
Porticoes, a strict centre, and Italy's crossroads
Bologna sits where the A1 meets the A14, which makes it the junction of the entire Italian motorway network and a natural stop on almost any route south. It is also a medieval city with forty kilometres of porticoes, a strict limited-traffic centre, and a student population that turns the housing market over every autumn.
Deliveries here are usually one of two things: a family or professional move into the city proper, or a student-scale move into a shared flat under the arcades.
The arcades are beautiful and they mean the vehicle frequently cannot get to the door — it stops at the kerb and everything comes under the portico on foot. It is a short carry but it is a carry, and on a wet day it is the only dry part of the job.
The centre restriction is enforced and taken seriously. Permits are obtainable with notice; without one, we work from a legal point outside the zone.
Late September in Bologna is the busiest moving period of the Italian year. Streets are full, lifts are booked, and everything takes longer. It is entirely doable and it needs booking early.
The arrival leg
Off the A1 or the A14 onto the tangenziale, then in through one of the old gates. The ring road is fast and the gates are the bottleneck.
University staff and researchers, families relocating for work in the food and engineering industries around the city, and a reliable stream of postgraduate students who arrive with more belongings than they admit to.
Because Bologna sits on the junction of the two main motorways, it is often the sensible point to break a longer Italian run. If your move is heading further south, ask — the routing may work better than you expect.
Everything up to the Italian border is the same for every destination on this site: collection at your UK address, export packing, the Channel crossing and the run through France. The route page sets that out in full, including which Alpine crossing suits which part of Italy.
The paperwork is the same too — a customs declaration, a detailed inventory and Transfer of Residence relief on your own used belongings. That is covered on the customs page. France appears on this site only as transit; if France is your destination rather than your motorway, our sister site france-removals.co.uk covers that corridor.
Usually not — the arcade puts the building line back from the road. The vehicle stops at the kerb and the carry happens under the portico, which is short and, in October, mercifully dry.
It is a process rather than a problem. Permits are obtainable with reasonable notice, and where one is not available we work from a legal standing point just outside.
Late September, when the university intake arrives. Nothing is impossible then, but everything takes longer and books out sooner.
Send the UK address, the Italian one and a rough room list. The access at the far end shapes the quote more than the distance does.