Tap to pay for the buses works in many cities in Italy. Buses are great, most cities there are just so many of them.
Tap2Pay in Rome, Genoa, Florence, Verona and Trieste. Not in Venice or Milan.
Not in Zagreb, Tickets needed for buses and trams ~53 Euro Cents for 60 minutes on the trams or buses there) All the small tobacco shops sell them. And sometimes the tram drivers, but you need exact change.
In Ljubljana if you are staying in the no driving area, old town, near the river, there is a free shuttle service in what looks like a big golf cart.
In Budapest if you are older, all the public transit is free. Really! If you go to get on a bus and the rear door aren't opening then the driver wants to see your ticket or ID proving you are old. So far, that's only happened once and weve ridden them probably 15 times already. On the tram the ticket checker lady was looking at everyone's tickets except she just smiled at me and walked to ward someone else. I think the age is around 60+. Could be older, its documented on the transit website. (the funicular is not free) The taxi's in Budapest are very reasonably priced. Use the Bolt app, Uber works here but it appears they add 505 to the cost for their profit. The bolt app just works. Used it last night to get from the nightime boat cruise on the Danube back to our hotel, 11 minute ride, cost us $8 US, and it turns out all sizes of vehicle were the same price, in Uber they are way more for a 6 person van here in Budapest.
We are traveling by train, Never stay just 2 nights..Never. only 1 full day in a city, which may be great for some, not for seniors.. We did a few in a row like that and that sucked. No more until July when we have another 3 in a row. UGH..
Most of the restaurants here in budapest have local and US currently available on the credit card machine. Remember to always pick the local, which is listed as HUF, (forints, about 440 for 1 Euro) If you pick US dollars you wil pay a lot more for your meal. We have not seen that anywhere else in the last 6 weeks of travel in Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia or Croatia.
The EC or IC trains in Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary are very old, even 1st class seating is a bit substandard when compared to regional trains elsewhere. Except the Circumsuvia in Naples, one ride was punishing, the way back had better seating.
Do NOT rent a car for the Amalfi Coast, hire a driver! Even in mid April the roads were packed and parking was Non Existent, so someone will not be able to leave the car. We hired a driver (not normal for us) and we were so glad we had.
Best Pizza, hands down, Naples. But we did find a small restaurant in La Spezia that was from Naples and his pizza was excellent.
In Italy there can be two trains arriving/departing on the same track at the same scheduled time. (WTF) We got on the wrong train once in the Cinque Terra thinking we could go to the next little town, but it didn't stop till we got all the way back to La Spezia. Since that error we have seen the exact same thing two more times. Makes no sense, but we were in Italy.
Something else we learned, if you rent a place and they use VIKEY to check in and ALSO use it to open the doors, your Cell provider must work at their doors. In Florence all the buildings blocked our cell access near the front door. We had ATT, Verizon and T-Mobile as providers. None worked. Also, often Vikey requires you to upload pictures of the front and back of your passport and some required a picture of the passport owner holding their passport. Do all that at home so you can just upload it from your phone. Till later, we train to Vienna tomorrow.. -Bill
Most coffee shops do not open till at least 8am in all the cities we have been. Which seemed crazy. We ended up buying an AeroPress so we could have coffee when we woke up.