So it happened to me at last.

After 40+ uneventful years and fairly casual security on my part, my two passports were stolen. It happened in, you guessed it, Italy. A friend of mine rented out a villa in Umbria for a week. A few days there blew out my history of never having lost a single thing on my travels.

It was a simple break-in; the crowbar type. We were out for the day thinking how peaceful the country side looked, how charming Lake Trasimeno had seemed, and how wonderful the people were. In the meantime, someone had figured out that there was nobody in the villa. They broke through the wooden door, ransacked the place, stole some cash, a wallet, my USA and British passports, and also…a block of parmesan cheese! To tell you the truth, that was the thing that really hurt. But at least they had good taste.

All of those years of telling people how to get a new passport, how to report it as lost or stolen, but never having to really do it, came to roost. The carabinieri came over after a frantic phone call, with a decided lack of urgency, in between an Italian World Cup game. In great disinterested detail, they itemized the stolen goods, reassuring me that it was almost certainly immigrants and that there was absolutely nothing to be done!

The next day I had to go down to get my police report from the carabinieri station in Castiglione del Lago, and low and behold they had no knowledge about the police report that had been filed the day before. Not only that but when I first arrived at the station it was closed. On the door hung an ominous sign that said “Orario per Publico” (Hours for Public) with a very limited time slot of public hours. I thought to myself, “Who else do they serve except the public?” Oh well.

Inside there was a decided lack of enthusiasm. On the shelves were files dating back to 1960. A photocopier machine that was so slow it reminded me of my days working as a clerical assistant in London in 1970. However, the police report was sorted (honestly I could have written anything on there), three copies were filed away for someone somewhere in a department of no use to anyone, and now I had to get my passport.

I called the British Embassy and they informed me that they could issue me a travel document specifically for my travel itinerary but that I would have to reapply for a proper passport which could take up to 12 weeks. The USA Embassy routine was a lot smoother. With the police report in hand, I simply arrived at the embassy in Rome at 8:15 AM without any formal appointment. I grabbed a number, took two photos at the photo machine located inside, and I had a new passport within 45 minutes. The passport is even valid for one year. By the time I had exited the embassy, the queue had already become quite substantial. The deal with an emergency passport is that you cannot make an appointment so you have to show up early and you must pay with a credit card.

This summer we have dealt with tons of lost and stolen passports. Therefore, I am grateful to have had a shared experience with so many other travelers. After all of these years, it was worth the wait! It will always be the summer that I remember as “That Time My Passports Were Stolen”.