Lasting impressions
Precautions
When you tell friends you’ll be visiting Italy they'll warn you about petty crime, pickpockets and bag-snatchers at tourist spots and on transport. Thieves often work in groups on trains. You have to keep a close eye on your belongings. We had been wary all along, driving from Salzburg into Italy, all the way from Venice to Rome, up the coast to Pisa, and then to Florence and now we were in Milan, the fashion capital of the world. It was our last day in Italy before we drove into Interlaken, Switzerland. All along we had observed precautionary measures. Our luggage was stored in the boot invisible to bypassers. Drink kept our important documents close to his body. I wore my driver's licence, credit cards and a few hundred Euros in a card holder slung around my neck, hidden by my top or a scarve. There was nothing valuable in my hand bag, which served mostly as a tote. We had often looked over our shoulders and patted our pockets to make sure we hadn't lost anything.
Wandering about town
Walking in the main streets of Milan with its enticing boutiques we also meet touts selling cheap jewelery, ready to fold their wares into the canvas on which they were spread, and flee the moment they get word of police in the area. You can't simply walk into a bank unless you have an appointment. All the design houses had grills, spring gates and barbed wire or glass shards on their boundary walls. Gates and doors had keyless entry systems. Most buildings sported heavy metal grates on front doors, and windows. They were certainly very well fortified. That spoke a lot about safety in Milan
Wrong Building Derring-do
Mistakenly believing the Duomo di Milano, one of the worlds largest gothic cathedrals, housed the Last Supper, Da Vinci's renowned painting ( when in actual fact it is in Santa Maria Di Gracie), we drove to it. It stands next to the Grand Palace which is now a museum. Trying to find a spot to park along the road, we drive across the entrance back and forth several times before deciding that there is no other way but to drive into the cobble-stoned yard hoping to find a visitor's park since there are already many expensive looking cars in the courtyard that faced the Royal Palace. There are several traffic signs at the entrance all obscured by lush foliage. As soon as we enter we almost bolt out of our seats being startled by the deafening sirens going off all at once. There is nothing we could do but stop the car immediately, only to be surrounded by several policemen. We had ignored the temporary no entry sign posted at the entrance. One of the cops, speaking English to our surprise, says he's visited Singapore. He writes out a ticket , fining us 75€ on the spot. Out comes my card holder to show my drivers license and the money for the fine. Putting away the receipt, I distractedly put my card holder and the money into my hand bag and wedge it between the door and my seat so even if I lower my window no one would be able to rob me of the practically invisible bag. I felt very smart, indeed.
Warnings at intervals
We drive off a little shaken. We have to be in Switzerland before the sun set and so we decide to take the road out of Milan city -- a straight road with several traffic lights. At the second traffic light, about 10 mins into the slow drive a pedestrian knocks on the passenger window and tries to tell us something. Cautious about duplicity we ignore him and drive on . At the 4th traffic light a cyclist drives up and clearly states "flat tire". Again we choose to ignore him. And then I feel a difference. There was definitely a puncture in the back wheel on the passenger side. I cannot be convinced to pull up any where in the street for I'd be risking more fines for parking illegally. And then I find a convenient pullout that would not hold up what little traffic there was. It was about 4:30 pm. The roads were quiet. Drink gets out and is shocked to see the back wheel in tattered strips sticking to the rim.
Importunate situation
A young man walks by business like. However, seeing the state of the wheel he offers to help. Then with both doors closed, I open the boot, and we take out our luggage, keeping a firm eye on it, while he retrieves the jack, a wheel wrench and the spare wheel. Just as he is about to start work he says he has to rush off. Then Drink starts work on the jack and the he tries to unscrew the wheel. He lacks the strength. Along saunters another young man who offers help. My eyes are still glued to the luggage. The man does a great job. He simply steps on the wrench and it moves. In our flustered state the simple idea never occurrs to us. He has partly fitted the spare.
Sculptured features designed to distract
Just then another good looking man walks up to me with a phone in hand. He asks me if I speak French. I said "no" but he kept on pointing in the direction away from rhe car, saying there was restaurant there where they spoke French. I'm befuddled. I don’t speak French. Why is he so insistent? It could be a ruse. I'm definitely not going to look in the direction he points. But once too often, and you fall into the trap.
I'm not turning, I'm not turning, I'm not turning! Uh Oh!
The other man, almost at the same instant excuses himself. He has to rush off. Drink wants me to pay him € 20. So I open the door. You know where I kept it don't you? But it isn't there!! I must have turned pale and had a blank look, enough to convey the message that we'd been cleverly robbed.
The split second my head was turned towards the French restaurant, someone had reached into the driver's seat from the passenger door, perhaps surreptitiously left open by the first helper,swiftly nabbed my bag and left in the opposite direction to where I had been looking. Drink, of course, had been intent on the wheel and was unaware of anyone opening the car door. What stealth, what coordination the few men who carried out the robbery must have had!
They must have cut our tire while we were being detained by the police.
The hassle of cancelling credit cards.
It is obvious that we have to file a police report. We don't know where the station is and it is already dusk. We have to work fast. First, find a place to stay. With the stepney in place we drive to a five star hotel. Surely they'll speak English and be gracious enough to help us? Wrong! They wouldn't lift a finger till we had booked a room with them. That is definitely not 5 star. So we find a small unassuming hotel nearby. The gate is heavily padlocked and a huge dog pounds towards us. A blonde man is right behind the dog and we tell him about our mishap, hoping he'd understand what we were trying to say. Will he give us a room now that we told him I lost my credit card? We convince him that Drink has one. Before we take the rooms we ask to use the phone to call the toll free number to our credit card issuer. He obliges. The receiver gives me a torrent of Italian words of which I could make out only a miserable few. We have to ask the the clerk to interpret for us, which he does grudgingly. The dog sat quietly watching us. It takes us the best part of an hour to report the loss.
Then we go up to our rooms, bringing all our luggage with us.
We are told that the police station is just down the road and we'll probably get to speak to an officer who spoke English.
Fortune favours us
It would have been a sleepless night had we lost a huge amount. Every now and then I woke up to check on our car parked on the street. We'd heard stories of vandalism on rented cars. We were thankful that the robbery occurred late in the evening and most box stores selling expensive goods would be closed leaving little opportunity for credit card transactions. Our friends who had warned us about thefts had lost thousands. A few days later we found that the credit card had not been used at all. All we lost were a couple of hundred dollars, a medical receipt and cheap jewellery.
Disconcerting police non-promise
Early in the morning we purposefully trot to the police station. Sorry, No English! We are pointed towards another station about a 20 min walk away. Sure enough an officer who speaks English serves us. He hands us a form in which we fill out official details and a long account of what happened. He stamps it and gives us the carbon copy for insurance claim. He adds, "What is lost is lost." They'll probably never nab the perpetrators since gangs and Mafia work together and they are very ingenious. Drink and I can certainly vouch for that.
No crying over spilt milk, but split from Milan we will
We had not been reckless or unduely careless. We had done what we could under the circumstances and with that we started towards Switzerland. Within a few hours we got lost and as a result had a unique experience only motorists can have.
( That warrants a separate post)
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