Rubato,
or
The Robbery

"Ferro! Ferro! Ferro!," demanded the man in the blue jacket at the
toll booth. He appeared to work there, he looked like other transit
workers, helpers really, who operate for the public the only working
turnstiles in some public transit stations. He pressed the button on
the machine that dispenses the ticket as I drove up and thrust it
toward my hand as I rolled down the window. I pulled hard at the
ticket, grabbing it out of his hand, as he yelled at me and my wife.

We were on the Autostrada, the A3 going north near Naples, Italy
entering a part of the national Autostrada system that has a toll. I
had just rented the car; a new Mazda 6-cylinder diesel wagon, we
needed it to go places in the nearby mountains where my wife's
ancestors were born; she was on a "roots quest" to ultimately get an
Italian passport. I had a cold, was confused with some residual jet
lag and also unable to read the Italian road signs as I negotiated the
traffic leaving Sorrento, but I followed the Autostrada symbol, my
wife navigating. I felt pretty confident. "Hey, this is not so hard
after all," I thought to myself, "It seems kind of obvious." It was
around noon time.

My wife, as a passenger, who, after all, was part Italian and had
learned enough Italian to get us this far on the trip yelled back, "
No capice! What do you want?"

"Ferro! Ferro!" the blue jacket yelled, and with that, he thrust his
hand in through my window at my wife's open day purse. She carries it
around with her while traveling; she gave the man 10 Euros.

"No capice!" my wife yells back. "What do you want?" The cars behind
me started on their horns: the one directly behind me bumped the rear
of the car as if to say "get going!" What was I supposed to do? I'm
not getting this.

"No capice?" The blue jacketed man then pointed to the right.

"OK, I'll meet you there," I pulled the car over to the right side of
the road.

This was my first driving experience in Italy, or in Europe, or, in
fact, anywhere out side North America. We were headed for Scapoli,
Molise province but staying in Venefro, a couple of hour's inland,
from there on to Coca della Campania, and finally, Salemi, Sicily.

"Was I buying a fast pass?" I thought. I needed to get through this
and on with the trip.

Glancing in the rear view mirror, I saw the blue jacket and a couple
others run towards the car. He came over to the passenger side.
"Ferro!" He demanded.

My wife rolled down the window, yelling at him in English, "I just
gave you ten Euros! What else do you want?"

The man in the blue jacket then reached into the car, grabbed my
wife's day wallet; she struggled yelling "Hey, don't do that", then
the wallet was gone. We were robbed! It just took a few seconds. I
immediately undid my seat belt, got out of the car, and pursued the
assailant and his accomplices, chasing him down the highway against
traffic and watching him jump a chain link fence. They were gone. I
looked back, my wife was crying, and I was pissed off, bewildered, and
wanting to attack the guy who robbed us. As I walked back to the car I
saw someone else in the yard by the highway.

"Polizia!" (Police!), I yelled to him.

The man pointed to the toll booths on the other side of the
Autostrada, but I would have to run across the road to get there. No
thanks, this sucks. Day five in Italy, day one in a car, and robbed!

I decided to drive down the road and look for the Autostrada Polizia.
I found some a few miles later on a connector highway. I pulled over
and ran to them: I smelled alcohol on the breath of one. Great! Since
I don't understand Italian, I play acted what happened and yelled
"Rubato!". They pretended to ignore me, but I was insistent. Finally,
one said in barely understandable English, "Drive to Salerno make
police report."

I don't think so, it is about 20 or more miles away and why weren't
these guys helping us, anyway? Maybe they were setting us up for more.
Welcome to Italy. I was ready to catch the next flight out.

Instead, I frantically drove inland a couple of hours to the town of
Venefro. With Lynn's license gone, I did all the driving. "They speak
English there: I made the reservations at the Palace Hotel and the guy
spoke English!" Lynn declared. OK. We'll go there and cool off and
decide what to do. Do we bail on the trip, or continue? I was worried
about identity theft, I never expected to get robbed at a toll booth;
we had taken precautions while on public transit, avoiding the gypsies
and pickpockets; in fact, most of the English speaking tourists we
talked with in Rome had been pick pocketed or robbed of money out of
their pockets while riding the subway. "Oh, they only got (fill in the
blank) dollars/euros," was the refrain I heard more than once. Is this
now the cost of being a tourist in a foreign country?

Hardly anyone spoke English in Venefro, especially the female clerk at
the Palace who spoke a little French; with an Italian phrase book and
passports we were able to confirm our reservations. Sulking around and
hanging in the hotel room, Lynn made the calls to the US: She
cancelled the credit cards, talked with her daughter Sheri, and
hassled with Sprint, who said, after being informed of the robbery,
What number is your account? Of course, we had no account numbers with
us, they were stolen. We later cancelled our Sprint long distance
cards; they have lost us as customers, in fact, their whole concept of
customer service has become an oxymoron. Looking for an Internet café,
we went to a computer shop that was open. The man working there knew
of one, and, driving his own car, motioned us to follow him in ours.
We caravanned to the Internet spot, taking a quick tour of Venefro.
Sometimes you just gotta trust people; this time it worked out, and we
got on the Internet.

"It's going to cost us about $2000 dollars to change our flights,"
Lynn said after looking on the Internet. Wow! We used frequent flyer
miles to finance the overseas flight. We had dinner, chilled in the
room, and waited for the next day. The following morning, we decided
to go to Scapoli. We had to get there before 12 noon since towns in
Southern Italy and Sicily close between 12 noon and 4pm. I mean really
close, no grocery or gas, no restaurants, nothing; they become kind of
like ghost towns in the afternoons only to reopen with a rush at 4pm.

Driving to Scapoli was a breeze compared to city driving and the
autostrada. Once off the main highway, we were alone on the road,
climbing the hillside hairpin turns in the Apennines and enjoying the
view and solitude. Gaining altitude in a rainy and lush environment,
somewhat like driving in the Cascades in Oregon, we followed the signs
and got to the hill top town before noon. Lynn got her Grandfather's'
birth certificate from the Municipio (town hall) just before they
closed. We spent the afternoon there, waiting for the bagpipe museum
to open at 4pm and for Lynn to talk with her contact, the museum
director. During that free time, we walked around the town, and met a
couple of people; one older guy was making wine in a downstairs room
in one of the houses, and a woman walking up the hill from the
oversized parking lot used for the zampogna festival. It was pretty
quiet otherwise. Lynn noticed one of her family names on the side of
the church while I took pictures, looked at the map and thought about
the rest of the trip, if it was to happen, or not.

The town reopened at 4pm. Coming back from the bagpipe museum, now
after 5pm, I had a coffee in a small, now crowded, "bar" and we talked
with a local gentleman who speaks both English and Italian. Since he
travels to Providence, Rhode Island, to visit relatives, his English
was good and he was helpful. He even thought he knew one of Lynn's
relatives in Providence. He then explained that the robbery was
probably done by a "Yugoslavian," and when we mentioned Napoli
(Naples), eyes rolled. Napoli is notorious for danger and rip-offs.
"Ferro means iron in Italian," he continued, "maybe they wanted
change." Or, maybe the robber couldn't speak Italian and was asking
for the "fare." I felt at ease with these folks.

The next morning we decided: Let's drive to Sicily and complete the
trip. The cards had been cancelled, I still had mine, we had our
passports, and we figured we learned enough from the toll booth
encounter to survive the trip. Forget the police and the American
Embassy, they were no help anyway, besides the situation was not
really that serious; we weren't hurt, there were no new charges on the
credit cards or ATM card, mainly we felt stupid for allowing a
situation like the one we encountered to occur. In Venefro, before we
left, I wrote Rick Steves, the travel writer, an e-mail about the tool
booth robbery as a heads up for other travelers; he wrote back a few
days later, reminding us to "always use our money belts." Keep things
hidden and the doors locked; that's the way to go.

I first drove the car to Conca della Campania, another small town, so
Lynn could visit her grandmother's DiSalvo gravesites in the town
cemetery; there was no Municipio office. Then, off to Sicily; we made
it to Messina in one long afternoon. We encountered no problems on the
way, we were careful, never letting the car out of our sight at the
rest stops, always driving in the right lane with the lights on, and
keeping up with traffic at the speed of 140+km/hr (that's over
80mph!). Its fun to drive fast.

We got unexpected help crossing the Straits of Messina. Following the
signs and symbols, I drove to the ferry ticket office and bought a
ticket for the car ferry. As we were leaving, the ticket agent came
running after us, "Oh, no; not again. Are we getting robbed?" Lynn
thought aloud. The agent said to follow the car behind us; it was
going directly to the ferry. So, trusting the driver, I did, and sure
enough, we got to the ferry dock in a couple of minutes. Italy was
starting to redeem itself in my mind. I thanked the driver while on
the ferry; he smiled, but didn't speak with us.

So, we completed the trip. Lynn got another birth certificate in
Salemi, Sicily, another hilltop town; we toured the western part of
Sicily, ate wonderful Sicilian food (canolli rocks), marveled at
downtown Trapani, visited the ancient ruins at Segesta, stayed at an
olive oil factory (vanilla ice cream with olive oil anyone?), listened
to weird Arab music on the AM car radio at night, and got over the
jet-lag. Then it was time to come home.

Footnote: We returned the car in Palermo instead of Sorrento,
reporting the mileage and the gas left in the tank. They never
inspected the car; the clerk just said OK when we handed in the
paperwork. We took the train back to Naples and our departing flight.
Had enough driving, and no way was I going to drive into Naples. No way.

And finally, we had the best pizza ever on our last night, in Naples.
We walked to the place where pizza was invented, Da Michele. We found
it on a map and had one of the scariest night-time walks ever from
our hotel near the dreadful Train Station and pedestrian-hostile
Piazza Garibaldi. We removed all jewelry (except wedding rings), and
carried only copies of our passports and 40 Euros in a money belt. I
didn't even bring my camera, figuring it would be stolen. I watched
cars run, in fact ignore, all traffic lights; watched people walk fast
as if being chased down the street; saw mountains of garbage and paper
trash everywhere; stores boarded up with roll up metal doors; endless
graffiti, dirt, dog poop, shadows, groups of young men in the alley
ways leading to the main street, but damn, the pizza was good. Click
here for more http://www.damichele.net/