I was in Venice walking in a straight small street directly to the vaporetto stop at about 7:00 p.m.. I saw a young couple way ahead standing in front of a door looking at a phone, looking up. At that point I realized that I had left my vaporetto pass at my apartment so I turned around and went back to get it.
Maybe about 10 minutes later I'm back at the same spot and the couple is still there, looking at their phone, looking up. Even though I did stop and ask if there was any way that I could help I really don't know what I could have done but I did ask.
The young lady said that they were unable to reach their host, they weren't getting any answer, they didn't know sort of what else to do.
Since my guest house apartment was literally up the street and to the right I gave them the name of the guest house and the phone number as we were not in an area of hotels. I suggested that they called my guest house to see if there would be any room available if in fact they were unable to reach their host. They said that they had paid for their accommodation.
9:00 I'm back and there in front of my guest house door is this young couple. She has a new bottle of soda in her arms and is yet again munching on an ice cream cone. This is when I felt uneasy.
I asked if they had reached their host and they said they had not. I asked if they had called The Guest House to see if they had room, and they said they had not. Even though we were in an alley in front of my guest house there was a bridge about 10 ft away and the alley was fairly busy so I was not afraid but really more perplexed than anything.
So what had they been doing for 2 hours? Why hadn't they called the guest house to see if there was room available as it is now 9:00 at night? My real question was what did they expect me to do by standing in front of the guest house ostensibly waiting for me to come back? I certainly didn't think that they thought that I was going to let them in? Or did they?
I don't know what kind of scam this could have been but I just didn't understand why she had a new bottle of soda in her arms, munching on yet another ice cream cone, they did not call the guest house in the 2 hours that I was gone to see if there was availability but yet they were waiting outside the guest house until I apparently returned, so what would you call it?
Don't know how it would be a scam but wondered if anybody had encountered something similar.