A vacation nightmare: How I got robbed in Italy

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- I barely stepped off the train in Milan when I realized all of my money was gone.

I looked down and saw the zipper of my crossbody bag halfway open. My wallet with 700 euros and all my credit cards had vanished. Panic overwhelmed me.

I asked for a police officer in the subway station, but I was told there were none. I knew I had to somehow get to the Milan Police Station.

Luckily, my teenage daughter had 20 euros in her pocket, which was enough to get a taxi to the station.

How did this happen? How did a native New Yorker, who is always careful, get pickpocketed on her first day of vacation in Italy?

My 14-year-old and I arrived in the Italian city at 9 a.m. on July 27 for an 11-day trip -- but we couldn't check into our hotel until 2 p.m. We had time to kill, and no access to a hotel safe where I had intended to leave some cash, credit cards and our passports.

But we were excited to start our vacation.

The hotel concierge insisted the subway was the best route to Piazza del Duomo, the main square. There we ate the best-tasting pasta and pizza in a cafe, waited online for the Milan Cathedral and browsed through shops.

Milan very much reminded us of Times Square: It was crowded and there were some common tourist sights, like people dressed up in Smurf costumes greeting visitors.

The Milan Cathedral didn't have metal detectors, so military police took every item out of my pocketbook and laid it on a table before we were able to enter. When all was put back in, my wallet ended up on top.


Shortly after we boarded the crowded train to get back to the hotel at 5 p.m., a well-dressed woman in her early 20s with curly black hair and deep-set, dark brown eyes approached us. She was flushed and acted as if she needed to hold onto the rail to catch her breath.

"Grazie," she said as she squeezed her way between me and my daughter, and held onto the rail.

She looked me straight in the eye, then she let go of the handrail, and bolted off the train.

The next stop was ours. That's when I noticed my wallet had vanished.

I quickly grew angry at myself for putting myself at risk on the subway in the first place. But I'm a life-long New Yorker; why wouldn't I take a subway?

Before I left the United States, I had heard pickpocketing was a problem in Italy as well as other European countries. In fact, there were more than 173,000 reported incidents of pick-pocking in Italy in 2016, according to The Local -- and that's just the ones that get reported.


The crowded police station was filled with tourists with similar tales -- the worst of which was a woman who had traveled to Milan to buy her wedding dress. She'd saved 15,000 euros to purchase her dream gown. But a pickpocket got to her first.

A feeling of desperation overcame me.

I spent the three-hour wait on the phone with family and friends, and my credit card companies. The credit card companies refused to mail anything anywhere other than my home address; only my debit card could be mailed to Italy -- but that would take a few days.

We were going to travel to Venice, Florence and Rome.

This was a trip I'd been planning for a decade. Since my daughter was 4 years old I'd promised her I'd take her to Italy for her eighth-grade graduation.

I couldn't go home.

I couldn't disappoint her.

Most importantly, I couldn't let this pickpocket ruin my vacation.

Finally, we learned that my parents could wire us money the next day when Western Union opened. But at that moment, my daughter and I had only 10 euros for a cab back to the hotel, and no money for dinner.

That is, until we met a mother and daughter who were visiting from Germany. They were in the police station because their new iPhones had been stolen from the younger woman's purse.

They overheard my phone calls.

"My mother and I would like to give you and your daughter some money to eat dinner," she said. Then her mother took 150 euros out of her purse and insisted we take it. The daughter said I could mail a check to her college address. (She coincidentally was an aspiring broadcast journalist attending Syracuse University.)

Both my daughter and I broke into tears.

What would we have done, if they didn't lend us money out of pure kindness?


The next day we canceled a pre-paid trip to Lake Como to take a taxi to Western Union in Piaza Del Dumo, where my parents would send me money via a wire transfer. But per Italian law, you can only send 999 euros to one person over the age of 18 in a seven-day period.

That wasn't enough money for the next five days until my debit card would arrive.

That's when I contacted a former colleague and friend who grew up in Venice. Her mother greeted us the next day when we got off the train. She had accepted a second wire transfer from my family -- and in doing so, saved our trip.

And after posting my troubles on Facebook, countless friends and family -- and even business contacts of mine -- assisted us in many different ways. I was amazed by the generous offers of help and support.

My daughter and I are eternally grateful.

For that one bad person who stole my money, there were many amazing, good people who lent us a hand.

In the end, we had a great trip that brought me to the top of Mount Vesuvius, the ancient city of Pompeii, the island of Venice and the streets of Florence and Rome.

It just goes to show how the kindness of others can take you from the lowest lows to the highest highs.