Just back from Italy..thought I would share a few tips to help newer travelers.

Thank you, will be there in 5 days.

If your experience in Munich was for your return flight to the Canada, that has been standard for years at Zurich airport for flights to the USA. There are special requirements for flights to the USA, including random secondary security inspections. At Milan Malpensa, there is a separate check-in desk, away from the main check-in area, for flights to the USA and Israel.

As the security inspector said as he searched my carry-on, "It's your government that makes us do this (implied: Complete waste of my time and yours).

I’ve worked in healthcare administration for decades, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to people who just assumed that either their employers insurance or their Medicare insurance covers them when they were out of the country.

For employer insurance, you need to check For traditional part A Medicare, you have no coverage. No you can’t bring invoices home and submit them for payment because they won’t be paid. I met one elderly couple who wound up Paying out of pocket almost $100,000 between the cost of the treatments and the cost of getting home

I've traveled through Munich to the US several times in the last three years and never had to line up twice at the gate or get a sticker on my boarding pass. I've never even had a paper boarding pass. What nationality are you?

This seems to be peculiar to German airports as I haven’t seen it in
other countries…they ask you to line up at your gate about 45 or so
minutes before boarding to show your passport then get a sticker put
onto your boarding pass. Then you have to line up again when they open
for actual boarding.

That happened to us in Barcelona on Friday. I'm not sure of the point of it was because later when we lined up for our flight the same guy came down the line and checked for the sticker and if you didn't have one, he gave you one.

Happened to us also for our flight from Lisbon to NY via Casablanca last Monday. Green dot sticker.

We just came home to the US thru Zurich and yes, we went thru Passport Control and then lined up again before reaching our gate to have our passport and boarding pass checked.

Moss:
I’m Canadian, but they checked every single passenger and gave them all the sticker.
Seemed like a make-work project, as lining up twice doesn’t seem logical.

Seemed like a make-work project, as lining up twice doesn’t seem logical.

Logical? Has nothing to do with it. It is a matter of time and extra work for gate staff, who would otherwise have nothing else to do. When I had a tight connection at Munich to the Sates, they just hustled me on so as not to delay the departure. When I showed up an hour early another time, then they had time for Special High Intensity Testing. I leave the acronym to your imagination.

BlockquoteInstall WhatsApp on your phone…most apartment rental hosts use it to communicate with guests.

Wouldn't you want to communicate with your apartment rental host on the rental platform instead of WhatsApp?

If something goes wrong, you would have a record of those interactions if you used the rental platform and the rental platform could monitor those messages to step in.

Wouldn't you want to communicate with your apartment rental host on the rental platform instead of WhatsApp? If something goes wrong, you would have a record of those interactions if you used the rental platform and the rental platform could monitor those messages to step in.

For CYA purposes that would be preferable, but in practice it's common in many non-US markets to communicate through whatsapp

WhatsApp is like invasive Kudzu that you can install on your phone. No thank you.
I have had several abb hosts suggest using WhatsApp and I consistently refuse that offer. I insist on either using the communication provided by the "service" or on using text/phone service with the host. When I have pushed back on WhatsApp, the hosts have always provided an alternative. I also refuse to use WeChat, even though I have a lot of friends who have accounts. They get over it and we communicate by phone or text.

“WhatsApp is like invasive Kudzu”

I’m sorry you feel that way.
How has it “invaded” you?

I’ve used it for literally years with friends and rental hosts , with no problems.
I do communicate with hosts through the booking apps if the questions are about the actual apartments, but a lot of good hosts in Italy are keen to help you with restaurant recommendations, hints about the area, etc. near the apartments and they may use WhatsApp for those sorts of communications.

SJ- thank you!
Back to your useful list- I am also recently back from Europe and despite being a seasoned traveler nearly forgot to retrieve my day bag (it's a lightweight tote bag) from the museum cloakroom. I came up with the bag counting plan from now on. as I turned from the exit to go get it.
I had a weird feeling something was wrong!
It was a museum day for me- at the next one I kept the token in my hand as a reminder. Great idea!
Welcome home!

Bon Voyage :
I’m glad you remembered your bag!, although I guess it would have stayed secure in the check locker or kiosk!
My travel friend is always leaving things behind….bags on trains, fortunately remembered as stepping onto the platform; and the latest a bag with a bottle of limoncello in it left behind on the hook of the toilet stall door.

Great tips SJ. We were in Italy in April and agree with them all. I can't say how many people i saw trying to cram onto the train from the airport to Termini in Rome with massive bags, and blocking the aisles. It seemed such an exhausting way to start a holiday!

SJ, as do many Meta products, WhatsApp extracts all of the personal data from your contacts and shares that information as a product/service to their customers. That is a specific business strategy that they employ for profit. You, the "customer" have no clue who has purchased your data or how it might be used. Kudzu. Further, if you familiarize yourself with their product, you will learn that they are extremely lax with how they protect shared data. Due to this absence of adequate user security, and data mining as a for profit strategy, it is not a product that should be recommended if internet and telephony security are a consideration. Its proliferation is not a justification for it's use, IMHO.

Nonetheless, Europeans tend to use Whatsapp, so if you need to contact someone in Europe, Whatsapp is the way to go, rather than sms text.

Thanks for posting your tips.

Trip insurance is important. We went to Austria and Slovenia with a college choir last December. Another one of the adults on the trip got food poisoning and ended up in the emergency room. Her out of pocket expenses was $75.00 since she had trip insurance.

I have to add that securing passage on local transit in Italy (i.e., tickets) was incredibly frustrating to me. The local transit authorities usually require purchasing at some central location far from the train station one arrives at, or alternatively at a "Tabach" retail outlet that almost never has them in stock. Of course one can always keep a pocket full of change to plop into the onboard till; I certainly enjoy carrying around coins, as I'm sure everyone else does. Pfui! Why can't they use tap-to-pay like buses in essentially every other European country?

I think there is probably less money in smaller areas and towns to install tap and pay on local transport.
We had coins to pay if we couldn’t find paper tickets.
The whole world has not gone electronic yet just to accommodate the occasional traveler.
And isn’t it part of the fun of traveling…to figure out how things work in a new place?
One place we visited , the bus driver said not to pay as he had run out of tickets!
In Lecce, a sweet lady we got talking to at a bus stop then elbowed us out of the way upon boarding, so she could pay for our tickets.

Edit:
When arriving at nearly all Italian train stations , there is usually a small kiosk selling cigarettes, candy, newspapers, etc.
They are your best bet to ask for local bus tickets for getting from your train station to wherever you want to get to by bus, especially if there are buses leaving from said stations.
I've never seen a bus driver refuse coins on a bus in Italy.
It's not that difficult.

We were happy to use tap on the tram in Padua although the buses don’t offer it yet.