COVID Testing for Return to US

We just returned from Venice two days ago. The CDC vaccination card was not a problem. Many places had not seen it but we smiled and said USA and pointed to the three shots. Most places shrugged and said fine. An earlier post had suggested an article in italian that explained that the card was to be accepted in Italy. I printed it but never used it. As for COVID test, we used the test kit that United Airlines accepts (a monitored antigen test that you take in your hotel room). It worked perfectly fine and we had a photo of our results with a QR code and stating negative test results and date that we showed at the airport and uploaded onto the airline website. It would have been a problem to use this if we did not have good wifi.
Good luck and have a fantastic trip!

Jill makes a good point about wifi. When returning from France we spent most of the night before in our hotel room scanning and uploading documents to Delta proving that we were fit to fly (and nowadays there are many, many documents). We also had to forward forms to the front desk to have them printed out for us. Without a comfortable environment and reliable internet, we would have been doomed. Especially because there's something about my wife's CDC card that does not scan well or isn't received well and it took many tries.

Yet another reason we choose to spend our last night in an airport hotel with all the modern conveniences and a short walk to our terminal in the morning.

Check with the airline you will be using. With Delta, they had a preferred test to use prior to US return. Also, note that some additional paperwork is required. Do this before you arrive at the airport for home. It will save you a lot of time at the airport and the folks managing the process will be happy you did the paperwork in advance.

1) Is testing in Rome as easy and accessible as it was in Paris?

Don't know about Paris, but there are 713 pharmacies in Rome. Many of those making Covid tests are listed here: https://www.faiuntestevai.it/en/

Marc- I am flying Delta so any specifics would be appreciated. We depart May 28 so I have time to do whatever is necessary ahead of time.

Thanks to all for the comments. No worries about the Paris Piggyback, I am interested in learning as much as I can about the whole picture.

If you're flying Delta, as I did, they are very communicative. Make sure you have the app, they communicate through that as well as through email. As you get closer to travel time, they will start pestering you with forms you need to fill out and return. Be aware that these things change almost weekly so keep up to speed on the very latest advice and requirements.

I’ll just add that although it was easy to upload our documents for Delta on our outbound flight, our return flight originated with KLM out of Florence (booked through Delta). We had to upload all required info again through the KLM site, only to receive an email telling us they couldn’t accept handwritten vaccination info. It was no problem once we showed our CDC cards at the counter while checking in for our flight, but I wouldn’t have bothered spending the time trying to upload the info.
We were in Milan last month, no problems using our CDC cards anywhere. Occasionally we encountered someone who hadn’t seen them before, but they looked at the dates and accepted them readily.
We took the online proctored kits with us, so used those for our return to the US. Again, no issues. Our B&B did not have great wifi coverage, but we logged in using a VPN and did not have any trouble with connection.

This is probably a dumb question but when documents are uploaded both on departure
( from USA) and in Italy back to USA is it covered through the whole booking? We fly into Frankfurt before arriving in Rome and then through Switzerland before arriving back to California. Just wondering if anything has to be done during layovers?

1) Is testing in Rome as easy and accessible as it was in Paris?

We are bringing 2 binaxnow proctored test kits to complete . We also booked pcr testing with scheduled time and skip the line at local pharmacy on a Sunday for our up coming trip to Rome.

BinaxNow is a "proctored" antigen (or lateral flow - semantics) test. Not PCR. 15 minute results.

Aimee - We were in Rome last week. We had the Abbott tests but kept an eye out for pharmacy test availability as a back up. They were so easy to spot. About half of the pharmacies in Rome would have a little white tent out on the sidewalk in front of them. We saw one every few blocks. At most, the line would be 3-4 people deep. We looked closely at one by our AirBnB and noted the hours for testing were 8:30AM-6:30PM daily.

Sorry late reply. Our test before leaving the United States is rapid pcr test. The booked pharmacy test in Rome is a rapid antigen test. I apologize.