I have an iPhone 5 from verizon, can I buy a sim card in europe and replace the one from verizon?

Question

My iPhone5 is model A1429.
I purchased it through Verizon within the last 9 months.
Can I just buy a new sim card and replace the Verizon one while I am in Europe for 25 days?

Answer 1

After 10 days in Scandinavia, this is what I have learned:
1.) getting the mini or nano sim has been impossible _ in Sweden, Norway and Denmark the carriers I worked with have the old sim cards that they suggest that you trim down to nano size.  The one I tried was still too thick to fit in the sim card drawer on my iphone 5.
2.) Verizon was very cooperative and unlocked my phone before I left the USA.
3.) The Verizon plan may be competitive with plans that cover multiple countries in Europe.  The pricing is sufficiently confusing that providers are hard to compare, ie. initial plan / sim card purchase amout, voice, data, text send / receive rates, varying monthly or package  amounts of mintes and data allowances.
4.) Keeping cellular data off, using wi-fi has mostly kept cellular data usage low, with a few exceptions resulting from data use for either google or i maps and a probable butt-call or mistaken program left on without wi-fi.
5.) I am still going to check out France's rate, but I won't report more if the story stays the same.
Good luck out there.
Thank you to all that responded.  Even though the information did not help resolve the problem it gave us traction.