I leave Sat. for Italy. Where is the best place to exchange US currency?
Has anyone here done this recently withthe rotten exchange rate?

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85' 300D No inspection, No registration fees, Cheap insurance
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious %$&^."

ATM machine over there.
also pay for anything u can with a credit card - the exch rate will be set at the day of posting of the charge.

both these methods are way cheaper than a cash transaction at a money exchanger who charges commissions/fees etc.

ciao!

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1984 300D Turbo - 231k....totalled 11/30/07 RIP

Agree w/84300DT. If you will be there for long or will spend a lot on credit cards its good to check with your credit card company. Some of them like to add 1,2 or even 3% to the 1% fee Mastercard or Visa charge to convert. Some cards are much better than others in this regard. I just got back from central Europe and the bloodletting wasn't quite as bad as I thought.

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80 300SD (129k mi) 82 240D stick (193k mi)77 240D auto - stick to be (153k mi) 85 380SL (145k mi) 89 BMW 535i 82 Diesel Rabbit Pickup (374k mi) 91 Jetta IDI Diesel (155k mi) 81 VW Rabbit Convertible Diesel 70 Triumph Spitfire Mk III (63kmi)66 Triumph TR4a IRS (90k mi)67 Ford F-100 (??)

Just what I was looking for. This place rocks!
I'll sacrific some to the money changers at the airport for cab fare and maybe a drink or two at the airport bar. There's a Looong 5 hr. stopover. in Rome.

Many thanks!

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85' 300D No inspection, No registration fees, Cheap insurance
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious %$&^."

Even there, go straight to the ATMs at the airport, you'll definitely find some. Don't go to the booths, they'll hose you unmercifully, especially the ones at the airport - between the fees and the poor bid/ask spread, you could pay up to 10% on a small exchange. I lived for two years in Hong Kong and four years in Europe, and never had a local bank account - I lived off my US Bank ATM card.

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81 300SD
08 MDX Tech
93 525i

05 F650GS

Good thing I'm still perusing in between packing. ATM machine it shall be.
You own all of those at the airport, right?

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85' 300D No inspection, No registration fees, Cheap insurance
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious %$&^."

Don't I wish - I'd be doing writeups (for everyone's benefit, of course..) on the new AMG's every week. My office for a couple of years was in a restored palace in the winding streets of Prague's Old Town - you couldn't walk out for lunch in the summer without running over thousands of tourists, lots of them American. It always amazed me to watch these folks pay big fees to the sharks in the booth, while there was an ATM on the wall behind them with their network's logo on them. In those days before ATM fees, you got a great deal - your bank used the same exchange rate their currency traders got on $10mm+ transactions, you couldn't match it anywhere. Now you pay a fee that's not far off what you'll pay at a US ATM from a different bank, but you still get the good exchange rates.

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81 300SD
08 MDX Tech
93 525i

05 F650GS

Make sure your ATM card will work in a foreign country, my aunt learned it the hard way...

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1979 Black on Black, 300CD (sold), 1990 Black 300SE, Silver 1989 Volvo 780, 1988 300CE (vanished by the hands of a girlfriend), 1992 300CE (Rescue).