The best credit card to take overseas

On a farm in Italy, I was served lake fish, roasted potatoes and sauteed greens.

If you travel overseas, most credit cards will charge you an extra 2% or 3% as a foreign-currency conversion fee. That may not sound like much, unless you spend $2,500 on restaurants, hotels, transportation and gifts, as I did in Italy last month.

The one card that doesn't charge such a fee is Capitol One's Visa, which I carried along with an American Express card that charges a conversion fee. The Capitol One card also rebates 1% of everything you charge on it. 

And when both cards were stolen by a pickpocket in the Milan subway, I found Capitol One's customer service far superior to that of American Express. 

The former sent a new credit card to my hotel by overnight mail, while the latter made me make two long visits to an American Express travel office. When I finally got the new card, I couldn't buy American Express traveler's checks with it or get a cash advance.

Interest rates don't concern me, because I always pay off my balance in full each month and collect hundreds of dollars in rebates every year. I received my Capitol One statement recently and got a better idea of how much I spent in Italy for specific meals and other expenses.

The weak dollar was a thorn in my side during my trip to Milan, Venice and Gallarate. When I left the U.S., a dollar was worth only 78 cents in euros. Then, the dollar fell further, to only 70 cents in euros.

The Capitol One card used a conversion rate ranging from 76.2 to 77.7.

All the meals I ate in Italy seemed expensive, though tax, tip, wine, mineral water and bread were included. Portion size varied, so I sometimes over-ate and over-spent. My priciest meal was at Noblesse Oblige, a seafood restaurant in Milan, where two courses were 35.5 euros or $45.65

I spent about  $91 on diesel fuel for the Alfa Romeo 159 sedan I drove from Milan to Venice and back, and that didn't even fill the tank completely. I spent about $50 on highway tolls, too, but public transportation was relatively inexpensive.

So the best strategy is to avoid staying in the big cities, and use the train or ferry for day trips. 

My hotel room in Milan was half the size and twice the price of the one I had in Gallarate, where the food was just as good but cheaper. 

In Venice, I stayed in a new hotel on Lido island for about $125 a night, with a full breakfast and a panoramic view of the enchanted city, and took the small passenger ferries three or four times a day to reach the Jewish Quarter and other attractions. 

From Gallarate, it was easy to make a day trip to Lake Maggiore, where I had a bountiful lunch on a farm.

Eating out in the Jewish Quarter of Venice

Grilled scampi or langoustines at Ristorante Al Faro in Venice, Italy.

The first Jewish ghetto was set up in Venice, Italy, in 1516. Today, most of the Jews have moved out, only to be replaced in the past 10 years by Orthodox from the United States, but you can still visit old synagogues and dine on some specialties of the Italian Jews.

I drove to Venice from Milan on Sept. 13, parked in a garage and took the first of many vaporetti (small passenger ferries) to Lido di Venezia, an island beach resort on the Adriatic Sea, where I stayed at the Viktoria Palace Hotel. 

For the next three days, I took ferries, walked and crossed many canal bridges to explore Venice and the Jewish Quarter, including three old synagogues, the first I've seen on the top floors of buildings.

One highlight was a big lunch of Jewish specialties in the courtyard of  Le-Balthazar, a kosher restaurant and caterer in the new part of the quarter.

The fixed-price, 20-euro menu started off heavy, with an appetizer of moist potato kugel, followed by vegetable couscous with raisins and pine nuts. 

My entree was a fish fillet in a mildly spicy sauce of fresh tomatoes, served with sauteed spinach. 

Honey cake was included, but I was able to substitute a small cup of espresso. The meal cost about $25.60 at $1 equals 78 euro cents. 

Le-Balthazar, Campo Ghetto Nuovo, Venice, Italy.

This restaurant is on a square with a memorial to a relatively small number of Jews who were deported to concentration camps during World War II. 

There were several metal reliefs showing scenes from the round-up, and some of the victims' names and ages were carved into wooden planks: Vittorio Moise Gentilli, 50; Eugenia Franco Pitteri, 62; Ida Morza, 72; and Alice Coen, 71.

Ristorante Al Faro (The Lighthouse) wasn't kosher, but I had a bountiful lunch of scampi (pictured above), followed by a large Mediterranean or Greek salad -- more than enough food to share with another person.

The grilled scampi were served on a bed of chopped arugula with wedges of lemon (18 euros). 

The salad was 8.50 euros, water was 3 euros and bread was 1.80 euros, for a total of 31.30 euros or about $40. 

Ristorante Al Faro, Campo del Ghetto Vecchio 1181, Venice, Italy; +39-041-716871.

My first meal in the quarter was at a table outside Ai Quattro Rusteghi, which is on the ground floor of one of the synagogue buildings. 

Here, I had thin pasta in a fragrant pesto sauce, fish and salad, with a glass of wine, water and bread, for 22.50 euros or about $29. 

Ai Quattro Rusthegi, Campo Ghetto Nuovo, Venice, Italy; +39-041-715160.

 -- VICTOR E. SASSON