lisaew, I hope you have a wonderful trip to Italy and Switzerland, and success with using your Discover Card. I myself have traveled throughout Italy on two 1-month trips with the past nine months, and I do not remember ever seeing Diners or Discover signage, but I was not looking for that since I was carrying just VISA credit and debit cards. I did find a variety of places, including at least one inn, that did not accept any credit cards at all. I hope you will have a good debit card or two with you, with a balance to draw on, so you can easily get cash when you need to. Everybody still takes cash, as far as I know!
I cannot resist sharing my only travel-related Diners Club story, from many years ago. I had finished up 3+ years in the Peace Corps in Brazil, and was slowly making my way back to the States, including chugging my way up the Amazon. On the boat from Belem to Manaus (site of the US-Portugal World Cup game I am watching as I write this, just finished with an exciting 2-2 tie!) I met this young guy from Luxembourg and we decided to travel upriver to Colombia together. Nice guy, but he spoke no language that was of any use in the region, and we communicated by way of my very weak high school French. We ended up stuck for nine days in the little riverside town of Tefe, as we missed a boat going upriver. Let me assure you all that missing a boat on the Amazon was a much bigger deal than missing a train in Italy, at least it was back then. Someone in Tefe let us put our hammocks up on his roof, and that became our home. While stuck in Tefe, we were befriended by these two Dutch agronomists who were working there, lucky for my friend who could communicate with them in German. One afternoon the four of us ended up in this middle-of-nowhere bar, drinking many beers and nibbling on whatever. I was quite surprised that the walls of this bar were covered with many, many Diners Club decals, so many that they served almost like wallpaper. After an afternoon of beers left the table covered with empty bottles, and all our speech in whatever language was considerably slurred, one of the Dutch guys offered to pay for our outing, good since only they had any income, beers were quite expensive that far upriver, and we were holding on to our few Brazilian Cruzeiros for dear life, as there was no place within hundreds of kilometers where we could cash a Travelers Check (remember those?), probably including whatever boat that might finally come along. So this Dutch agronomist took out his Diners Club card to pay the bill. The bar owner took it into his hand, turned it over, and said only: "what is this?" He had no idea what a credit card was, let alone a Diners Club card, and of course just took Brazilian cash at his bar. Fortunately our friend also had cash to pay, so we could stagger our way back to town. I don't know how the barkeeper had come into this very large supply of decals, but evidently he just liked the colors and used them to decorate his establishment. Thanks for listening! Hope you have better luck, Lisaew!
