Effendi, thank you very much for the quick & detailed response.
Not to mention your extremely detailed guide to Prepaid SIMs, that has probably helped countless visitors to Italy.
Your advice makes perfect sense. No purchasing before we arrive. We'll go with either Wind OR TIM. Wind sounds like better value, but TIM sounds like what we need, in case we end up in rural Italy...
Hope the priest/tour guide let's us go hunt for a TIM/Wind shop!
Just a couple more questions, if you could be so kind...
1) From your experience, is the activation process for TIM similar to Wind?
i.e. Type 4242 etc...
2) Can I use the same SIM card for my 3G dongle + laptop & then swap it out to use with my iPhone to surf & make calls?
3) Or do I need to use a special SIM card for the iphone?
Grazie again!