Thanks Effendi, I am staying in B&B's so have plenty of Italian addresses.
Will be in Villa Di Piazzano in Cortona Monday 25th, Antica Torre in Firenze Wednesday 27th, etc., so will use one of them.
They still haven't replied to my e-mail ... do you have any idea of delivery time frames?

Usually it takes not more than 1 week to deliver to Italy, but I really cannot say anything more since I have my UM card from a long time..

I topped via this Australian reseller in March. See if they can get you one in good time.

http://www.riiing.com.au/

I'd have to disagree with the international SIM business; it sounds like you're mostly going to be in Italy, in which case an Italian SIM would make a lot of sense.

I've had good results with Vodafone, and if you're interested in coming back, keeping the SIM active means only a 3 euro topup every 10 months, which you can do on their website using a foreign credit card (basic Italian required, however). The Passport option would make sense for placing calls in the other countries; you might be able to use it with your Australian SIM.

Receiving calls is another matter, and you might want to have a look at the rates for using your Australian SIM vs. those for the Italian one while outside of Italy. However, if you're only keeping the phone in case of emergency calls, this shouldn't be such an issue.

Remember that to get an Italian SIM you need a real or fake codice fiscale; see the Italy page for details, and a codice fiscale calcuator. (I figured mine out a few years ago using pen and paper, and used that; when I finally got a real one, which took 10 minutes, it was only slightly different because they included my middle name.)

The OP wrote he is also going by barge from Paris to BE and NL. I think the international card would not be a mistake. In addition, in AU @ home he will have free incoming.

True, but he didn't say how long; it all depends on the amount of time and telephone use. If (as seems likely) it's just a few days on the barge, and he just wants to be reached in case of emergency, it might not be such a big deal to rely on Passport for the occasional outgoing call and let it be known (as he mentioned) that he is to be called only if really necessary.

Sure, an international SIM might be pretty useful, especially if he's going to be placing and receiving lots of calls, and it might be useful later as well. However, for low use, most of it in Italy, and "being reachable in an emergency" an Italian SIM would be cheaper, and easily available, whereas it sounds like there's not enough time to order an international SIM.

TRUE, but the OP says for a month with 10 days in Italy.

Aha, I misread the post. Then an international SIM might be a good idea, if it's still possible to get one.

As it's mentioned that it's not for high use, only emergency, I'd also tend to go with a local rather than global one, as the latter are a fairly high cost for the SIM compared to the credit included.

I agree probably Vodafone because of Passport, so you could make do with just the one, and when outside the SIM's home country an sms could be sent home to get them to call back. Then it's just sms cost plus ?1 per call