Headed To Germany/Italy - Anything To Look For?

I would take in as many mints as possible. Then there's ruins galore. Keep an eye out for nicer Vatican pieces. If I have to bake, I'd pick Italy. 2nd time in more than 20 years I'm missing not going. I have lots of family in the south.

Brush up on the latest Krause for Germany and Italy,

been there and I just bought by a chance look at some nice coins in a coin store, ended paying twice and a half, after a check w/krause too late, but I liked the coins.

I was going to ask the same thing.

as a collector of just everyday circulating coinage, I would say there are dozens of coins to be collected there. I would love to collect all of the euro coinage form all of the countries (circulated and at face value). that would be great for me. However, if you are looking for silver and other metals then I suspect you will find things to be more expensive there than here given the dollar to euro conversion.

You could look for my relatives.
Not to many years ago my Son spent a year at the University of Krakow. Part of the trade with Polish kids was that his group had to land in Belgium and work their way to Poland via walking, busses, trains, etc. Going though so many different countries and knowing I'm a coin collector he was instructed to look for anything that might interest me. Forgetting he was a teenager with little to no interest in coins I was sent a good deal of coins from many of those places and all were worth face value whatever that was supposed to be. Most of the coins came from Germany since on the way back, after school, he stopped in to visit relatives. However, again coins came back from him that were just normal everyday coins.
My suggestion is while in Germany try asking people there where any old coins could be found. Hopefully you have some relatives there that could give you some decent advise as to where older coins could be found.