More advice on protecting yourself from pickpockets (other than staying at home, under the bed).
Where else is your wallet at risk? At the automated vaporetto-ticket machines. By the time you’ve finished deciphering and following the instructions, your worldly goods may well have moved on. If not yet, the pickpockets have seen where you put your wallet. Getting through the turnstiles is sufficiently distracting that you won’t notice that they are right behind you as you pass through.
“In very crowded areas,” my friend explained, “they get so close to you, you don’t even know they’ve opened your bag.”
Another thing: “Crossing crowded bridges is another way to get your bag opened up,” etc. etc. etc.
I have no doubt that all this information and advice is valid also in Florence, Rome, Milan, and any other city that attracts lots of people. They don’t have to all be tourists, there just have to be lots of them and the thieves have their cover.
Tour guides have been stolen from — one German guide was pickpocketed inside the basilica of San Marco. The spouses of tour guides have been ditto ditto. On especially busy days (for example, from now till October) there are hundreds of these incidents a day.
Don’t bother pining for the good old days under the doge and the Council of Ten. As Lino occasionally remarks, “They used to cut the thief’s hand off. He kept stealing anyway.”
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In April I was boarding a vaporetto in a crowd at the train station when the crew started shouting, “Pickpocket, pickpocket!” Everyone’s hands went to purses and wallets. The police arrived immediately and headed after the thief–very slowly and unenthusiastically.
I didn’t mention this in the post because it wasn’t important to my main message, which is DON’T GET YOUR STUFF STOLEN. However, the police basically know all of these people by now — it would be funny if it didn’t actually matter. Yes, they take them in, the thieves get booked (or whatever the process is), and then released. Not made up. You can understand the officers’ lack of enthusiasm for this Sisyphean task.
Lino’s remark puts me in mind of Gianni Schicchi 😉
Well yes, though in that case no hand was actually removed. To the audience, as to us, by now it seems very quaint — especially as everybody knew it didn’t resolve anything….
I made it simple for my pickpocket, having temporarily slipped my wallet into a side pocket instead of a tightly gripped bag inside my clothes. To make it easier, I joined the crowd on the Paglia Bridge and expounded to another tourist about the Bridge of Sighs.
Fortunately, I discovered the loss near the shop of our jeweller friends in St Mark’s Square, which at that time happened to be located next to the police post there. Phone calls were promptly made to block credit cards, and a policewoman took down the details, remarking that I took it all
very calmly. I explained that this was due to my Anglo-Australian sangfroid.
A trip to Milan was necessary to replace my passport. When I told my story to the cab driver on the way to the Consulate, he said “Of course the pickpocket would not have been an Italian – one of those Rumanians!”
I was lucky that it all just turned out to be a bit of a nuisance, thanks to Venetian friends and Consulate efficiency. At least I had a good story to tell.
John Flint
The Romanians have long since been replaced by Albanians, who have been replaced by Serbs and Bosnians. When we have exhausted the Balkans, perhaps peace and tranquillity will reign at last. Glad you came out of it all right.
My uncle was famous in the family for being pickpocketed or mugged in every country he visited. I traveled with him once and discovered he thoroughly enjoyed all the baroque police procedures he could find. And they seemed to greatly enjoy his time and cooperation. He worked in a team of consultants on how to form a govrnment in 3rd world countries.
Your uncle sounds like an utterly entrancing person. Mugged maybe isn’t the most appealing situation to find himself in, but if you’re going to travel the world (not first-class, I’m assuming, though maybe in first class just the same) you can’t be surprised if things happen. I am sure he never kept all his cash and/or cards in the same wallet. As for his attitude, I think we should all adopt it as our own.