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For later readers...





Technically your girlfriend has no proof that she is allowed to be in the Schengen zone, and some countries (such as France) have a law that states you must always be able to identify youself. So in these countries, according to the rules, no you are not allowed.

I can imagine though that if you are travelling over land this will probably be less of an issue and you are unlikely to be stopped. If your girlfriend has dark skin, you may be much more likely to be checked than if she is white. I've seen this many times when taking trains across the Swiss German/French border (even though all are within the Schengen zone).

Even if you are stop I would consider it likely that your expired Italian passport may help you, but technically it shouldn't be accepted.

Since what you are doing is not technically allowed, I would advise against it as the results can get ugly. Especially after the Paris attacks everybody is very security conscious (paranoid), so I would try to get an official document that proves you are allowed to travel in the Schengen zone before you go.

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    That's not quite how the rules work. Any EU citizen definitely has a right to be in the Schengen area, passport or no passport. There is no notion of being “allowed” to enter or not. What can happen is the following (1) time lost and general hassle while the police tries to establish that you are in fact an EU citizen and (2) a fine. Both can also happen within a country, even your own country in some cases, not only at the border. Crossing an internal border merely increases the likelihood that you have to interact with the police (and consequently face all this trouble). – Relaxed Dec 10 '15 at 10:25
  • Also, some airlines might refuse boarding. – Relaxed Dec 10 '15 at 10:25
  • I'm pretty sure every EU country has a rule that you must be able to identify yourself at any time, which goes hand in hand with you must be able to show that you are allowed to be there. – fishlein Dec 10 '15 at 10:40
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    Actually, that's not true. In France for example there is absolutely no obligation to even hold an ID, let alone carry it with you, ditto in the UK which does not even issue ID cards (only passports, which are obviously not mandatory for citizens that do not want to leave the country). But you're right that many countries do, my point is that such an obligation is not comparable to the rules that govern external border crossing. – Relaxed Dec 10 '15 at 11:13
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    Many people think it's mandatory to hold an ID in France so you will find countless webpages pretending that it is, but it's not. I wrote a lengthy explanation of all this in expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/994/… Most importantly, failing to have an ID, even where and when it's mandatory, and having no right to be in a country are not the same. – Relaxed Dec 10 '15 at 12:40

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