Immediately after I finished Part 1 of this series, I began to give thought to Part 2 and what I felt was the most disconcerting of our major travel disruptions. That being the theft of the Love-goddess’ purse.
But fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on one’s point of view, before I began a second act of forgotten travel thievery finally popped into my head. That being the “Devastating Eurail Pass Train Robbery of 2007”. And given that it was much less disturbing than the purse theft, I will begin with it. I must have been blocking it out!
Finally! I have found an app that allows me to present my photos in the carousel view that I originally wanted to display. Now all you have to do is click on the centre photo in the collection and away you go. No more pages filled with tiny thumbnail photos. I am thrilled.
The Devastating Eurail Pass Train Robbery of 2007
This tale begins in Innsbruck Austria. It is a charming town nestled in the Austrian Alps. While there, we decided to head down to Venice next to see what the fuss was all about.
Backing up a bit. This was a typical two-month European outing for us. We would be doing all the major travel by rail. After landing in Glasgow Scotland, we were planning on getting as far afield as Rome and several other stops in Italy before heading along the coast for a weeklong reprieve in Antibes, France. This was to be followed by a stop in Beaune, the heart of La Bourgogne/Burgundy wine district before heading to Paris from where we would fly home.
This necessitated buying a Eurail pass as we always do for these excursions. Using a rail pass is the least expensive and most interesting way to get around in Europe. However, on this trip, I only ordered a one-month pass instead of one for the two full months. This was because we were going to spend a reasonable amount of time in Scotland and London before heading off to the continent. I realized that there was no need to pay for a two-month pass because at least the three weeks would involve very little travel as would the last week, which we would spend mostly in Paris.
The leg of the trip where disaster struck occurred while travelling down the Brenner Pass to Verona where we would switch trains and head over to Venice. Innsbruck to Verona is a lovely scenic journey. At one point we saw that the highway running on the other side of the valley was at a complete dead stop. Yet another reason not to drive and take the train. We spent the trip in a six-person compartment like the one in the photo carousel below.
It was In Verona when we got off to change trains that I realized something terrible had happened. I reached into my jacket pocket to pull out the rail pass and discovered it was gone. It should have been there because that was where I placed it after we got on the train at Innsbruck and threw the jacket down on the seat beside me.
I even had time to run back onto the train and search the cabin in which we were seated, all to no avail. It was gone. I suspect the gentleman who was sitting across from me snatched it while I wandered off to the bathroom. He had the appearance of a traditional Italian train thief… looked like a businessman appearing to be busily talking away on his cell phone.
Italian Bureaucracy at its Finest
What to do? As I stood on the platform, I spotted an official-looking office. We hurried over and as I walked through the door, I was yelled at by the clerk behind the counter – to get out. Apparently, only one person was allowed in the office space at a time, and he was busily talking to someone else… who knew? The space probably would have held 50 people.
After some wait, we were allowed in but again I had to wait for the clerk to finish his telephone conversation, which was clearly a personal call. Fortunately, he had some understanding of English and when I told him that I’d had my Eurail Pass stolen he said that he could not help me and that I should go to another office in the building.
When I got to the second office, I was told that no, they could not help me either and that I would have to go to the police station in town. Knowing the terms of the rail pass agreement, I knew that I had to have a police report to get a partial refund for my pass. Back then, the nice Eurail people would refund you for some of your costs if your pass was stolen or lost while you were travelling. They will no longer refund lost or stolen paper passes but they will help you out if you are using an electronic pass. From the Eurail website, “If your device gets lost, damaged, or broken with your Pass on it, you can opt to move your Pass to another device.”
Given that we had to get to Venice to check into our hotel, there was no way I was going to wander off to a police station in Verona. I decided that I would go to one in Venice instead. We bought ourselves a couple of second-class tickets and off we went.
We were staying in Mestre, the last stop on the mainland before the rail line runs another few hundred metres out to the islands. Much to my delight, as we debarked in Mestre, I noticed that there was a police bureau right there in the station. We walked across the street and checked into our hotel after which I decided that I would wait until the next morning to go talk to the police about the theft.
They were quite helpful at the police station as I muddled through detailing what happened to an officer who had a fairly limited understanding of the English language. There was a very lengthy form to fill in for him to be able to provide me with a report. After about half an hour of answering the seemingly endless number of questions that needed to be filled out on the form, we came to the very last question. It was, “was the document lost or stolen?”
After a little bit of thought, I said confidently that I was certain it had been stolen. To which the officer replied… And I paraphrase… “Oh then I cannot help you. You are going to have to go to another police station in town to report a theft, I can only issue reports for lost items “. To which I replied, “No now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I lost it.” I got my completed report. More Italian bureaucracy at its finest.
Venice and Onward
We had a lovely stay in Venice. We did a lot of walking and got to see a lot of the important sites… That you did not have to line up to get into. 🙂
And our other stops weren’t too shabby either. Rome, Florence, Antibes and environs, Burgandy, Paris! Two or three photos from each stop.
I’m happy to report that the rest of the trip went very smoothly; the only glitch was that I had to buy tickets for each connecting trip from that point on when I had expected to use the Eurail Pass for a couple more weeks of travel.
After we got home, I prepared all my documents to send off to facilitate my refund. I had my police report and I had copies of all the rail tickets we had purchased from Verona onwards. I decided to submit all the rail tickets from Verona through to Paris and was counting on them to sort out what portion of that would fall under the rail pass for which they would reimburse me.
This tragic travel tale ultimately had a very happy ending. Someone was not paying attention and decided that they would reimburse me for all my tickets including the ones that were booked outside of the allotted one-month travel timeframe. The amount that we were refunded came very close to being as much as what we paid for the Eurail Pass in the first place. Cha-ching. 🙂
The Penultimate Disaster… The Stolen Purse Catastrophe of 2002
Yes, I am using the word “penultimate” incorrectly here, but it does have a bit of an intensified sense of “ultimate” sensibility to it. 🙂 Looking back – while we were in the embrace of it this would definitely qualify as being absolutely the worst situation we have ever found ourselves in while travelling.
And interestingly, it happened not long after the Shocking Hotel Tragedy. In the “China” pictures displayed in Part 1 the one of us at the Great Wall was taken on April 4, 2002, and the penultimate event took place two days later in Frankfurt Germany.
We continued our around-the-world trip by flying from Beijing to Frankfurt. Needless to say, after the 12+ hour flight we were jetlagged. That did not stop us though. After checking into our hotel, we headed out in search of an Internet café to check our emails and see what was going on in the world. In the photos below you do see the hotel we were staying in. But the Internet café where I am posing in my “interesting” sweater that I purchased in Australia is a different café from where the catastrophe took place. We didn’t want to go back there.
Anyway, the short of it was we booked one computer, and I was doing my thing first. The Love-goddess decided she needed a computer of her own and went back into the front room to secure one. When she came back her purse was gone from the back of the chair I was sitting in. The purse contained all her charge cards, her passport, some glasses, and a bit of cash amongst other personal effects. Panic ensued!
What we think happened was a couple of guys who were using one of the phone booths in the same room as the computers, picked up the purse as soon as she had headed towards the front room and followed her out past the front desk and out the door. We asked the clerk to phone the police because we were looking for immediate action on the event. It was clear the clerk just wanted us to leave and get this mess out of his hair.
We persisted, however, and eventually, he did phone the police. We spoke to them, and they told us to go down the street to the train station where there was an in-house police bureau. When we got there, they told us that they could only deal with crimes committed in and around the train station, but they did provide us with an address and directions for another station close by.
We got a little lost, but eventually, we found the other police station. While the Love-Goddess waited to speak to an officer I went back to the hotel intending to cancel all the charge cards. I recollect that this was a Sunday and that when I called the 800 number for MasterCard in Canada I kept getting fed into the French system and was unable to speak directly to an employee. After about 15 minutes of trying, I gave up and attempted to call American Express. At this point, the narrative took a 180° pivot.
Just as I began speaking to the American Express representative a knock came at the door. I put down the phone and answered the door where I found a hotel employee. They had been attempting to phone the room, but of course, the line was busy because I was fully immersed in my effort to contact the nice folks at MasterCard. The hand-delivered message was as follows… The purse has been found!
Apparently, this is how the situation unfolded. The thieves were of the kind and thoughtful variety. Rather than throwing the purse into a garbage can, which I understand is the regular modus operandi, the thieves dropped it right in the middle of the plaza in front of the train station so it could be found. Someone picked it up and took it inside to the police station. The police there made the connection that this might be the missing purse and quickly phoned the station where they had sent us. Great joy ensued!
Holy-schmoley! Yet another “outhouse to the penthouse” storyline. One that put us through an emotional wringer.
The kind thieves had only taken the cash and the spare glasses and left the charge cards and passport in the purse. We were out a little bit of money and a used pair of glasses but essentially no harm, no foul. Pretty amazing!
The rest of our stay in Frankfurt was uneventful… And we left with good feelings.
Yes, these are all situations I would not want anybody else to have to go through but they happened and as these things often turn out, these are the stories that we keep telling over and over about our travels. I think it’s much like soldiers only share happy recollections of the war.
What Did We Learn from These Events?
Well, I suppose for one thing, no matter how well prepared or mindful you are… Shit happens. So, try and remain calm if one of these unwelcome events takes place while you are far from home. As these events unfolded for us, they were very stressful, and anxiety-inducing, and at the time seemed like they were major in-the-moment unsolvable problems. In reality, even though they were very unsettling as we went through them, we now know that bad things can and probably will happen at some point and that you just need to remain calm and approach them thoughtfully and constructively. Perhaps one should even recognize at the time that these, one day, will be much-beloved family stories to tell.
Happy travels everyone!
