Robbed at Cinque Terre!

Today we were in Vernazza, one of the five Cinque Terre towns on the Italian coast. We had a great lunch at a restaurant overlooking the marina – a gorgeous setting. We were enjoying life. Little did we know that we were about to be robbed while at Cinque Terre.

After lunch we walked up the main street of town to the train station. It was mid-day, so the platform was more crowded than it had been this morning. When trains pull in to small stations like Vernazza, they stop for a just a few minutes to let people get on and off. Everyone who’s boarding knows there’s no time to waste.

When the train pulled in and stopped, my Better Half climbed aboard first, with me right behind her. All of a sudden an overweight, brown-skinned girl in a tight black dress forced her way in between us. The doors are narrow, so you have to board single-file.

There were quite a few people waiting for the train, but the platform wasn’t THAT crowded. There was no reason for this girl to force herself in between us. Her behavior was very suspicious. Something was up.

Robbed!

This is standard operating procedure for pickpockets and thieves. They jostle you around or divert your attention in some way. Then with all of the jostling going on, you don’t realize they have their hand in your purse or pocket. It takes them just a few seconds. We’ve had our share of run-ins with thieves, so we always try to be careful and alert.

As soon as we boarded and sat down, we checked my wife’s purse. She had it zipped up at the top.  Her wallet was in a zipped up pocket on the inside. She’s really good about that sort of thing. Nothing was missing, but we were sure that girl’s jostling was an attempt to get in that purse.

There was no sign of the girl in the black dress riding in our car. The next town was only five minutes down the tracks. We were still double-checking everything when we started slowing down for the next stop.

Since all the commotion had taken place in front of me, and because I carry my money clip deep down in my front pocket, I hadn’t been concerned about it. But then I thought maybe I’d better check to be sure I have all MY stuff.

I reached down into my pocket. Hmmm… I reached down a little further. It’s a deep pocket. Nothing. Just an empty space where my money clip always is, securing my cash, credit cards, and driver’s license. Are you kidding me?  Swiped out of my FRONT pocket? Without me having a clue? Yep.

I’d Been Had

I checked my other pockets. We looked on the floor. We looked everywhere. Nope. It was gone. The girl in black must have had a partner who was right behind me. While I was focused on what was going on in front of me, he or she reached into my front pocket without me feeling a thing.

We made the discovery just as the train came to a stop. I ran to the door, jumped off the train, and looked up and down the platform to try to see the girl in black and her accomplice. I guess I was thinking that if I spotted them, I’d chase ’em down, tackle ’em both, wail on ‘em with some martial arts moves that I don’t have, and take back my money clip.

Fortunately for me, they weren’t there. Of COURSE they weren’t there! They were back at the previous station inspecting their prize. There was nothing left to do but get back on the train before it left without me. Even if we had stopped a policeman and identified the girl, she’d have been clean, because her accomplice – who we never saw – was the one who made off with the goods. I have to admit, that’s a pretty good system they have there.

Getting my money clip swiped was no fun, but it wasn’t the end of the world, either. I had been running low on cash, so they didn’t get much. We had what we needed to contact credit card companies back at the hotel. Mostly it was an inconvenience, but also a frustration just because they got away with it.

La Stazione di Carabinieri

We thought we’d better notify the police, so we got off at the next stop. Looks like we’d get to see Monterosso al Mare. After asking around, we were directed toward a tangle of little streets where we’d find the police station.

It took some doing, but we found the police station at the end of a dead-end street at the far end of town. It looked more like a house than a police station, but the sign over the door said “Carabinieri,” so we went in.

A young girl wearing a smart-looking police uniform welcomed us in. She was nice, but she spoke zero English. Knowing some Italian, which I usually do, would have come in handy here.

Unfortunately, the italian language part of my frazzled brain had completely shut down. Somehow we managed to get a police report filed. (It’s a good thing we did, too, because that was the first thing the credit card companies asked for).

We walked back through town to the train station, where we caught the next train headed toward Santa Margherita Ligure. It turned out to be the “Local.” It stopped at every tiny town along the way. We had no idea there could be so many towns between Monterosso and Santa Margherita Ligure. Man, that was one long, slow train ride back to the hotel.

To be continued…