<p>Make sure your D realizes that some of the attractions, like the Vatican and various cathredals like the huge one in Milano, in Italy don’t allow a female in with shorts so she should take so skirts and long pants with her. Even though it might be hot and she might be inclined to wear shorts, she might be able to bring a skirt of some kind with her in her backpack in the event she decides to go into a religious place that requires it. My Ds did this and it proved to be very practical. We noticed that this requirement caught a lot of tourists by surprise. Some of the people argued vociferously with the guards but there were no exceptions - they were serious about it. Of course, there was an enterprise near the entrance to the Vatican that was selling some kind of ‘paper skirt’ or something to the ladies. They used to also require that females wear a head covering in the religious sites but it seems like that went by the wayside prior to my last trip there. </p>
<p>Also, the Italians tend to dress more conservatively (i.e. more dressed up) than we do (well, I’m in California!) in general depending on where one is.</p>
<p>We just got back from a trip to Italy about a week ago. We also used Rome Cabs. They wait for you after customs with a sign and it is about the same price as a taxi. Our driver didn’t speak much English, but was super nice and even showed us some sights before delivering us to our door. My son had a rail pass last summer and found that for Italy it wasn’t worth it, because even though it covered any train, all trains that required a seat reservation (which is all of the high speed trains including Eurostar) there was another unusually high reservation fee on top of the pass. They can buy tickets easily at machines at the main stations or at most travel agencies (who don’t normally charge an extra fee). You can’t really purchase tickets from here through Trenitlia (use them for checking schedules though), but it really is easy when you get to Italy. As for phones, we bought Italian sim (TIM) cards on Ebay to use in our unlocked ATT phones. They worked out great and we had Italian phone numbers before leaving. If you are interested in doing that, let me know and I will try to send you the seller’s name. It takes between 10-14 days.</p>
<p>Preironic, please send me the name of the seller you used on Ebay. Did you have to send the seller a copy of your passport in order to activate the card?
I was looking on Ebay and I did find people selling Italian Tim Sim’s but I waas a little leery since it seemed you would be required to email the seller a copy of passport.
D leaves June 5th so i am trying to hurry along.</p>
<p>UCSD, again thanks for your valuable info, I’m printing all this out for my D.</p>