Around 14 million Italians are expected to be on the move on the weekend of 2-3 August as summer holidays begin in earnest. Many businesses and factories are set to shut up shop from Friday 1 August, and Saturday 2 August has been tipped as the day to avoid travelling as an estimated ten million cars will be on the road. The company in charge of most Italian motorways, ANAS, said it had banned heavy vehicles from travelling during peak hours and removed road maintenance blocks in order to facilitate circulation, but long traffic jams are still expected.

The worst affected motorways will be the A1 (Milan-Naples), the A14 along the Adriatic coast and the A4 near Venice. The A3 (Naples-Salerno) and the A30 (Caserta-Salerno towards Calabria) are also expected to be slow, as are border crossings with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia.

Rome is the city with the biggest number of people leaving this weekend (an estimated 500,000), followed by Milan (300,000), Turin (180,000) and Genoa and Bologna (90,000). For information see the ANAS website.