Italy will recognize CDC vaccine card for Green Pass

Bill,

That's certainly good news, especially as Canada is on the list. Maybe I'll have to start dusting off some travel plans.

And there you have it
Simple

Thanks Bill

Thanks Bill. This is indeed good news. We had planned a trip to France late August/early September, but with the uncertainty of their health pass and COVID rates rising to uncomfortable levels, lockdown speculation, etc., we may now look at Italy. Thoughts? I had my trip planned for France but had not pulled the trigger on the airline tickets. I am finding some decent deals out there. Do you hear any talk of lockdowns there on the streets? So glad at least to get some confirmation on the CDC card being valid for getting around.
Perhaps I will look into Lake Como region, and rent a car and explore Tuscany again with no itinerary in mind. Just meander. I have been to Italy many many times, but do love it. Did you cross borders at all, say in to Switzerland? (Not sure France will be a good idea later on).

JR,

I haven’t heard anything more than what the Italians news media has reported. There has been some talk about requiring the Green Pass (our CDC card) for train or air travel inside of Italy but nothing has been finalized.

This trip has been very easy when it comes to Covid restrictions. The only bumps I ran into a few times were places that required a reservation that usually wouldn’t, but you can research that online with each website.

I doubt lockdowns are coming in the near future. I only say that because the government raised the minimum Covid case numbers for each region to move from white (where they all currently are) to yellow, ensuring that the whole country stays as unrestricted as possible. I’m sure it’s because they want to keep the tourism money flowing as long as possible. How long that will last, no one can tell.

I’ve been in Italy the whole time. I did not cross any borders because I didn’t want to deal with any confusion about how that would work. Now there’s much more info out there about the requirements, so it probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Everyone has been very friendly and welcoming and VERY happy to take my money.

I've just returned from 10 days in/out of Milan with my wife and 12 year old daughter (all of us fully vaccinated.) Getting into Italy was actually a lot easier than getting back into the US. Before sharing our experiences, please note that the situation is fluid, with requirements changing frequently. As a result, we took a belt-and-suspenders approach. Hopefully this will help:

Going to Italy we:

• Uploaded our CDC vaccination cards to our airline profiles and in compliance with the Travel Center check in process. We did this several days in advance of our travel as they require review by the airline. We were asked to present our cards along with our passports on entering the country and again at just one of the hotels where we stayed.
• Registered and printed our EU Digital Passenger Locator Form (dPLF.) We were never asked for this, but probably a good idea to have on hand.
• Got negative antigen tests the morning before we flew to Milan. This turned out to be unnecessary.
• Registered with the government of Milan at the suggestion of our airline (and possibly also the state department) and also turned out to be unnecessary.
• Registered with the Sudtirolean government at the request of the hotel where we stayed in the Alpe di Siusi. This was a colossal headache and also turned out to be unnecessary.

In order to fly home, we:

• Had to have a negative rapid/antigen or PCR test within 3 days of our flight.
• These tests are being offered for free by the Italian Red Cross at major train stations. We couldn't even find the one at Bologna Centrale and the line at Milano Centrale was too long when we were there, so...
• Instead, we asked our hotel (a few days in advance) to make a reservation at a local pharmacy for us the day before departure. 20 euros apiece and they hold your passport while waiting for the test results. The whole process was about an hour and we left with stamped printouts of our negative results. NOTE: The place was jammed and customers without reservations were basically laughed away.
• We uploaded our test results to our airline profiles and in compliance with the Travel Center check in process. We were also asked to present them at baggage check-in.

Very helpful Steve
Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experience

Did you get both hard copies and digital docs with your negative results for leaving Italy?

Can you share what airline you used? We are traveling on Delta this weekend and haven’t seen anything about uploading vaccination information. I wonder if this is airline specific or am I missing something.

And thanks for sharing about line at train station in Milan for covid tests. We were planning to do the same in Venice. You are promoting me to make sure we have a back up plan.

We just returned from Milan yesterday on Delta. Delta does not require you to upload anything to their website. When you check in online you will complete an attestation as part of checkin.

We did the eMed Covid test with a video proctor from our agriturismo in Tuscany. We decided to print out our results instead of relying on the NAVICA app. The agent at the Delta desk didn't scan the barcode, just checked to see that our names on the passport matched the negative test results we printed out.

We stayed at 4 different places (Dolomites, Tuscany, Verona and Milan) and none of them asked for our CDC card. As usual they wanted to see passports.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the ePLF was never asked for either.

Completely wonderful and uneventful trip.

I do recommend the 6-pack eMed test. The whole
process only takes about 25 minutes. And if you test positive you then have extra tests to re-take the test without having to schedule an appointment somewhere. My wife and I tested negative so we brought the 4 extra tests home and will be using those in a couple of days to test before we return to our offices. So while buying a six pack seems like a potential waste, it was comforting to know we had backup tests in case of a potential false positive.

BethFL
Pretty sure he’s talking about United
They have a “Travel Ready” section online that walks you thru the steps

Thanks for the information on airlines. I am just concerned that I won’t do something that needs to be done with covid so I really appreciate hearing from people traveling!

Lol I hear you
I feel like I’m stalking this forum just waiting for posts like Steve’s

Travelers are starting to return
So much good info

39 days to go

Here are some answers to your questions so far:

Did you get both hard copies and digital docs with your negative results for leaving Italy? Yes. Hard copy was handed to us with our passports. Electronic copies sent via email and text message.

Delta does not require you to upload anything to their website. When you check in online you will complete an attestation as part of checkin. This tracks with our experience on the way back to the US, but we definitely sidestepped a long wait at the gate by having uploaded our cards via the United app. And, again, it's a fluid situation, hence our belt and suspenders approach.

Can you share what airline you used? United.

Re: make sure we have a back up plan: Even in the smoothest running scenarios, it's a good idea to have at least a couple of options. Having the local pharmacy as a back up enabled us to immediately discard the train station line in exchange for a relaxing lunch in a shady piazza.

Re: 6-pack eMed test. We looked at this, too, and glad to hear it worked well (and only took 25 minutes!) for others, but we also heard that wait times vary (i.e. some have had 3+ hour waits.)

Completely wonderful and uneventful trip. Amen to that! These are strange times to be traveling, but there are real advantages to being among the first tranche of returning travelers.

Finally, and FWIW: Of all the measures we took, there's only one I regret investing time/$ on - the Sudtirolean government registration. It was cumbersome, insanely time-consuming, and ultimately unnecessary. (Silver lining: I waited until my family was asleep, then went down to Giovanni Zampieri's bar in Verona's old city and had a couple of grappas while I did the paperwork. ) All the others were either needed or gave enough peace of mind to make it worthwhile.