Pickpockets?

I don't think you'll find pickpockets to be as plentiful in these smaller towns, but you should always be on the safe side and take precautions. Theft can happen anywhere there is opportunity, even when you are at home.

Wear a moneybelt containing your valuables underneath your clothing and carry only a small amount of cash in a more easily accessible place to meet your daily need. If someone tries to reach beneath your clothing to get to your 'jewels', that's a different kind of concern. :) Joking aside, also be careful what you carry in a daypack - if you carry one.

Thanks. I do have one of Rick's money belts I will be useing. I just like to have a wallet in my back pocket, which I will not be doing in Rome.

Probably not a good idea to carry a wallet in your back pocket anywhere in Europe, except maybe the smaller towns and villages out more in the countryside. Not every pickpocket looks like you might imagine; some are dressed quite expensively in suits, carrying briefcases, looking entirely respectable.

Carry a wallet in one's back pocket and one is going to be on the "sorry about that" list eventually if one travels much in Europe these days.

Hello. Yes be very aware of your bags in Rome and your pockets. We were surprised to meet a couple in Lugano, Switzerland, who said they had been mugged in Lucerne. We had just come from Lucerne also. They were in a small church, over by the big bear fountain. We had been in there also. I actually thought that it would be a good place to be held up, as the church was so "dead" and away from everything. Somebody had pretended to be an undercover cop, looking for somebody who had just exchanged counterfeit currency. The policeman asked to see the guys wallet. Somehow he stole the money out of the wallet. Then when the couple went to the police, they got absolutely terrible help. Plus the couple was told that they have a problem with those kind of people, but "Oh well." The police said that those people just move on to another location, daily. Considering how small Lucerne is, you would think the police could plant some fake tourists and catch the crooks. The Israeli couple were so shocked at how the criminals pulled off the heist and at how unsympathetic the police were to their plight.

Unfortunately, that is a very old scam. We have spent nearly a year in Europe over the past 18 years and in some of the great pickpocket cities. In all of our travels we have never had a problem and have never seen a pickpocket in action. We do take reasonable precautions but nothing out of the ordinary. It is easily to be believe that pickpockets are everywhere when you read travel sites but remember only people with problems discuss the problems. They exist but don't look like an attractive target and they will go elsewhere.

Elaine's post made me remember something I saw in the Duomo in Milano. It wasn't crowded, though there were tourists walking about and some people sitting quietly. About halfway down the nave I saw a group of 5 men sitting together, kind-of hunched over talking amongst themselves. They certainly didn't look like tourists, and clearly were not there for devotional reasons. I doubt the Milanese are in the habit of conducting legitimate business discussions inside churches. It didn't feel right. Whether they were there to prey on tourists is a mystery left to the gods, but I gave then a wide berth. They were still there when I left after about an hour. It made me think of the successful plot to assassinate Giuliano de' Medici inside the Duomo in Florence. Bit of a location warp, but being in Italy gets me so absorbed in thinking about the Renaissance!

Thanks everybody. I am just going to have to do without one this trip. I do have an old worn out one I may carry with nothing in it, to see if it gets taken without me noticing OK back to packing.