best charge card for italy

Visa and Mastercard are widely accept and preferred. You would have trouble with Amex except in some high end place and bigger hotels.

And lots of places in Italy don't take any credit cards at all. Cash only.

Although I did pay for one rather expensive meal in Rome with a credit card, my Italian friend had told me not to even try it because "they will laugh at you if you try to pay for food with a credit card". I didn't look at other places to see if, or what type, they took as far as food goes, tho.
Be sure to contact your CC company(ies) before you go, telling them where you are going and for how long so they don't block your card(s)!

I'd say we used a credit card for over half our restaurant meals. No one laughed. :-) One thing that's a little different is there's no place on the credit card slip to add a tip. You do that in cash, preferably handing it to your server.

Capital One MC has no foreign transaction fees. However, cash is the way to go in most places.

karen, As the others have said, Visa and MasterCard are the two best cards for use in Europe. I can't recall any businesses I've used that would accept AmEx cards (but of course I don't usually stay in "posh" Hotels). Cheers!

Easiest way is with CASH! The low end places will not take a credit card. Most USA banks charge fee for each foreign exchange.
I suggest that you use your ATM or cash card at ATM machines and tack out as much cast as you can each time. Post offices should give the best rate.

Post office gives best for what? Exchange rate?? All bank associated ATMs on either the Plus or Cirrus network give the same rate which is less than one percent over the interbank rate. It does not get any better than that.

Donald,
At this moment the interbank rate is $1.4452 for a euro, Visa is using $1.445483.

My experience in Florence and Milan last month is that, to my surprise, several shops and restaurants accepted AMEX. This was great because the Bank of America AMEX card had no (0%) foreign transaction fee. But, of course, we also used Visa (1% transaction fee) much more frequently. So, definitely take a Visa card with you.

But not all Visa cards charge a 1% fee. Shop around for no fee cards, as discussed above. Happy travels.

We use cash mostly but also carry a Cap. 1 MC

In my experience most larger/high end restaurants will accept credit cards, most smaller places won't but you will find some that do. Just be sure to carry cash with you in case you pop into a place that doesn't, or as can happen, the system is down and they can't run your card. Has happened to me several times.
I recall seeing a few Amex accepted here signs but for the most part it's Visa/Mastercard.