ViaMichelin what am I doing wrong

It very well may work better on some browsers; I'm using IE 11. My tip is to type your city name slowly, preferably starting with a capital letter, and wait for the site to suggest matching destinations, then choose one of those from their pull-down menu. Just your typed version of the name is probably not recognized.

• If the place you are looking for has a different name in English to the local name (for example Florence/Firenze or Cologne/Köln), always try the "real" name used by the locals. This site is primarily used by locals, it may not have all the other alternatives listed.
• As Laura says, start typing the name SLOWLY and see what it suggests.
• In many cases there are many different places of the same name, but tourists only know of one of them, so be prepared for it to suggest many alternatives and you have to decide.
• And include accents in names if possible, Düsseldorf, or Łódź. They are different letters. If you haven't got the keys on your keyboard, you can copy-paste.
• In France, and other countries, it helps if you know the postcode of the town or village.

And yes, Michelin is better than Google because it is designed for the European road system. Google is just a grey-on-white mush that does not distinguish between types of roads.

Update: I tried on my phone and it does work, even though it behaves as described below it will publish results even without a 5 digit number in front of the town name.

I found out about the different names when I was looking for Ortisei, it brings up not Ortisei but Sankt Ulrich quite easily and with the 5 digit number.

I try to enter La Spezia, Italy for example ; when I start entering La Sp slowly it finds La Spezia right away on a drop down list along with a bunch of other areas with a 5 digit number which are no where near La Spezia but no 5 digit number for La Spezia.
If I enter another digit so La Spe I still get 5 or so options below but none have the 5 digit number.

On my PC using IE If I select anything without the 5 digit number the site spins forever and never has results.
Tried googling looking for the GPS number for the La Spezia Train Station but have had no luck.

mreynolds, the 5-digit number is the postcode of the town or village, it is not a "GPS number". It is displayed if there is more than one place of that name. For example, if you enter "Stresa", it gives "28838 Stresa, Italy" and "10098 Stresa Italy". You have to pick the one you want from the list. If you don't know the postcode of the Stresa you want, it is trial and error.

If you want to start from a specific part of La Spezia, you need to know the name of the road, which is Via Fiume (I looked on viamichelin). Entering "Via Fiume, La Spezia," works.

Easy enough, thank you. Rookie mistake on my part not to figure that much out.

Does work fine on my phone. My browser on my PC just does not play well with it.
I recognize this is not the IT forum at Via Michelin.com so don't need to waste others time with it, for me if there is a drop down secondary menu to choose a town it shows up on my phone but not my PC rending the site only usable if I start with the postal code.
I tried to start La Spezia with a postal code of 19121 and then I can select a street in La Spezia from my PC and it works fine.
Still for me a pain in the rear to have to look up the postal codes in advance.

I use this site: http://distancecalculator.globefeed.com/Italy_Distance_Calculator.asp It has been quite useful on my drives in Italy,

I use this site: http://distancecalculator.globefeed.com/Italy_Distance_Calculator.asp It has been quite useful on my drives in Italy,