Beware of Pickpockets
“Beware of pickpockets!” Concerned family and friends will often share this advice, even as they wish you a good trip to Italy. Once you arrive, solicitous shopkeepers will echo the caution, “Beware”, as they demonstrate how to hold your purse securely next to you.
Unfortunately, a friend discovered too late the importance of this warning.
It was a few days after a trip to Florence. We had returned hot and tired after being jostled all day by fellow tourists and local citizens just going about their day. We each carried a water battle to combat the withering heat. My friend nestled hers atop her small open purse tucked up high under her arm. The blue floral case that held her passport was just visible under the bottle.
“It looks like it could be a wallet,” she had noted. A pickpocket must have thought the same thing.
Two days before her return trip home she began to organize her things. The pretty passport case was nowhere to be found - not in her purse, the apartment or my car. The last time it was seen was in Florence.
What do you do when you’re missing your passport in a foreign country? Luckily, Google offered a simple straighforward process. We realized others must have this same experience of a lost or missing passport more often than you’d think. So if you’re ever in this predicament, here’s what you do.
1) File a police report
Here in Italy, you go to the nearest carabinieri station. Though the report is not strictly necessary, it is recommended. As with everything Italian, we were amused despite my friend’s dismay at the situation. We went to Greve where a young, armed, female officer buzzed us into the station. She appeared to be the only officer in the building. We requested a “denuncia” report of the theft. With her vapping device in easy reach on her desk, she henpicked the keys on her desktop PC as she asked for details in her limited English, to which we reponded in limited Italian. Google translate got a good workout! She asked where the theft had occured. We wished we knew! “Would you please call the Firenze central polioce station to check if a passport’s been turned in?” we asked. She sheepishly answered there is no central station. We guessed about the most likely location for the theft and she called that district station. No luck. So she proceeded with the report. During the twenty or thirty minutes we were there she buzzed in a delivery man and then to our amazed bewilderment left us alone in her office while she went to retrieve a copy of the denuncia from the printer in another part of the building! Can you imagine being left alone in a police office here? I guess we looked pretty innocuous!
2) Get yourself to the nearest American Consulate to get an emergency passport
Lucky for us there is a Consulate in Florence. The others in Italy are in Rome and Milan. We drove from Greve to Florence, denuncia in hand, stopping only to get the necessary two passport photos. Interestingly, Italian passport photos are a little different in size and specs than American ones. We gave the photographer the American specs and hoped for the best. No Consulate appointment is needed for an emergency passport. In most cases, we were relieved to learn, you can obtain one the same day. Having a hardcopy of your passport expedites the process. (Note to self, always travel with at least one color, hard copy of your passport face page!).
My friend entered the Consulate alone (I wasn’t allowed in) without her cellphone which I held- we had read “no electronic devices”, though she later learned she could have kept it if it was turned off. An hour later I met her. While she waited for a call from the Consulate that her emergency passport was ready, we had lunch. Within two hours she received the call. After just a few hours, $165 and two passport photos, she had a new purple passport, good for a limited time - supposedly a year. She can apply for a new permanent passport at home at no additional cost.
Though emergency trips to the Carabinieri and American Consulate were not how we planned to spend my friend’s last full day in Italy, it all worked out. It was an interesting side note that her new purple passport did warrant “special” attention when she landed, as she was escorted into a private room for an interview. But as they say, “All’s well that ends well!”