The Darker Side of Travel - Part 1

Travel can be fun, interesting, rewarding etc., and if you believe the travel shows -you will be continually having ..'the best time of your life'. I love travel, don't get me wrong, but sometimes things don't go to plan. I have been robbed while travelling on two occasions. This post is about the first of those occasions.

A female friend, my ten year old son and I were travelling to Rome. We had been warned by other travellers of the tricks or ruses that were used there to divest travellers of their money and possessions. We heard of babies being thrown at you so you would drop your things to catch them; groups of children using cardboard to distract you etc. And when you're travelling with a backpack, you can't just blend in, so we may as well have had 'tourist' tattooed on our foreheads.
Tourist = target.

With all this in mind - and with some trepidation - we arrived at the Rome Train station in the late afternoon and made our way out to the Youth Hostel where we hoped to stay. At the time they had a rule that males and females were to be accommodated on different floors. There was no way that I would allow my ten year old son to sleep in a room full of men on a different floor to me. It was just not going to happen. My friend pleaded with the management and in the end they grudgingly allowed us to stay in the same room as long as we left the next morning.

The next day we went back into the city and contacted an accommodation establishment which one of the main travel guides recommended. It was called something like 'Papa Germano's' and sounded friendly enough. With an eye out for suspicious characters, we walked the short distance to the accommodation from the train station and were in the foyer of the building when it happened.....

A lady followed us in and was gesturing at my friend's pack. There on the pack was some liquid which looked like 'sick'. We put our packs down and looked at the mess in disgust. The woman had some tissues which she gave us to try and clean it up. Another person came down the stairs and he began to help too. My friend gave her day pack to my son to hold and told him not to let it go. The woman encouraged my son to help.. "Come.. you help... you help..." As soon as he let the day pack go ... voom.. they vanished - with the day pack. It was like being in a movie. I ran to the door but there was no one to be seen.

We could not believe what had happened. So much for being mentally prepared for all the tricks that might be tried on us. No one had mentioned this trick! And it had all happened inside the place where we had come to stay.

Feeling sick we continued upstairs to the reception desk. On hearing of our misfortune the owner shook his head and muttered something about gypsies. He quickly whipped out a map, drew a line from the accommodation to the Police Station and told us to report it. "Don't worry" he said. "You have insurance? Insurance will pay."

It was all a bit too well rehearsed for our liking. That and the fact that there was a bottle of what looked like the substance sprayed on the pack in the stairwell, led us to believe that maybe we had been setup and it was an inside job.

We went to the Police Station to report the incident but couldn't shake the feeling that the accommodation owner was somehow involved. Another problem was that my friend's Youth Hostel card and her Eurail Pass were in the stolen bag. Both documents were essential to our trip. We decided not to stay at 'Papa Germano's' after all and went back there to collect our bags. The owner was unimpressed to say the least and was sweeping the room out - as if we had soiled it - as we left.

Back to the Youth Hostel we went, thinking that maybe we could beg for mercy and talk them into letting us stay again until we could do something about the Eurail Pass and Hostel Card.

When we got there we found that someone had handed in my friend's Youth Hostel card, her Eurail Pass and a shopping list!!! Unbelievable! The hostel was on the outskirts of Rome and a fair distance from the incident, so how they got there we have no idea. A thief with a conscience or a good Samaritan? Who knows... all we knew was that we were leaving Rome as quickly as possible.