Postcards from Venice
 

Does anyone have an idea of the estimated time it takes to receive a postcard mailed from Venice to the United States? I have been home from Italy 2 weeks now and my friends have not yet received their postcards that I mailed from Venice. The postcards that were mailed from Rome arrived over a week ago.

Pat<BR>There was a thread on this recently, someone had asked her hotel to mail a postcard which took 8 months or so to arrive.<BR><BR>From my own experience, I can tell you that of a batch of postcards all mailed from Venice at the same time last fall by me personally, some arrived in the US within a week, others within 2 weeks, one within a month, and one never arrived at all.

Pat,<BR>It varies. Usually when I've sent postcards from major cities in Italy, it'll take around 10 days. However I've been over there during spring or fall; imagine that during the busy summer season, there's more tourists and more mail, so .... Also, I'm one of those anal retentives that prepares address labels to make my postcards easy to read and process (or at least I like to think it helps the post office).<BR>

My parents sent me two postcards on their recent trip - from Florence and Venice. I finally received the postcards 2 weeks after they got home (about 3 weeks after they mailed them). In previous experiences I've noticed that mail from Italy tends to take longer than mail from other European countries. I'm sure your postcards will arrive - eventually!

Most tourists make the mistake of not posting first class ('posta prioritaria'), - which makes a big difference.<BR><BR>The problem is you can only buy first class stamps at a post office. (If you buy stamps at a card shop/kiosk in Italy, you will be sold only second class stamps). <BR><BR>I regularly receive posta prioritaria post from Rome in 2/3 days (in England).<BR><BR>Steve

My dog has received his postcards (in Reno) within 6 days of mailing from Venice from my last 2 trips there.

Thank you for your input. I did mail the postcards first class ("posta prioritaria". However, we had our hotel mail our postcards from Venice versus mailing them ourselves from Rome. I guess maybe that could be why the Rome postcards arrived last week and the Venice postcards have yet to arrive. Would it be worth my while to email the hotel and inquire what their mail delivery schedule is?!

Pat<BR>As far as I know, hotel front desks just hand the cards to the mail carrier each day, I don't know that they have their own mail delivery system.<BR><BR>Besides, as I mentioned above, I've mailed my own cards from a post office in Venice, and still had a full range of delivery times to the US, including one "never."

Have those wayward postcards from Venice made their appearance yet????<BR>

I am glad to report that one of the four or five postcards mailed from Venice arrived in the good 'ol USA yesterday! Now we'll see how long it takes for the others to arrive. Now at least I have hope that they too shall come!