Hello:

Is the best way to call the United States from Italy by using a calling card? Does anyone have a recommendation as to where to get one and which one is good? There seem to be many choices on the Internet. I have gotten burned before in buying them there, so if anyone has a recommendation, I would appreciate it. Can I buy them in Italy as well? If so, where? We had some issues with this when we went to London last year.

Finally, if someone can recommend a good calling card to buy to call Italy from the U.S., that would be great.

I apologize if this is a stupid question. Thanks.

You can wait until you get to Italy to purchase a Europa card for 5E that is good for 200+ minutes calling North America.

This Slow Travel page has a picture and further info about the Europa card (I got mine at the first newsstand I asked):

ihttp://www.slowtrav.com/europe/calling_from_europe.htm

Go to a tabacchi shop and buy the Europa International Calling Card. 5€ for 200 minutes. If you call from a phone in your hotel room, you will actually get that many minutes. If you call form a phone booth, it will eat up the time faster.

Sometimes the English number to call doesn't work. Just use the Italian one, it's very easy to follow. It asks for your PIN, and the next instruction is to dial your number.

We don't have long distance on our land line anymore; we just use an MCI calling card. We renew it when it gets low, and we have used it so much that we have memorized the numbers. Before we leave, I just call and get the toll free country that I will be traveling to. We call that number, and the MCI operator comes on, and we proceed just as we would at home. It eats up a chunk of minutes, but we keep a thousand on the card at a time for about $20 any way.

We had the Europa card a couple of years ago,it was perfect and very inexpensive and purchased from a tobacco shop. I think all of our hotels in Italy allowed calls from the room with no extra charge, but you always need to check.