Good to hear from you. You’ll find a whole bunch of iPad enthusiasts in this Forum who are only too willing to help other iPad owners and to hear of their experiences. Don’t be afraid to post any questions you may have or use the ‘Search’ button near the top of the Forum web page. I usually find I discover one new interesting and useful piece of information about my iPad every day - and often not even what I was looking for!!
Hope to hear from you soon with your thoughts about the iPad.
Have fun and enjoy your iPad
If you have a WiFi only iPad then you can't use a SIM card - as you rightly suggest, this is for 3G only. But you'll find lots of WiFi hotspots.
If you don’t already have it you can download a copy of the iPad manual for free.
There are plenty of WiFi hotspots around, so you shouldn't have a problem anyway. There are several threads on this Forum about Members who have been in Italy, so take a look and read of their experiences using the iPad there.