May 2026 trip report - Italy: Part 3, Roma

…continued

On our first full day we had breakfast at the hotel, which was a decent spread but very busy with guests spanning multiple small adjoined seating areas connected to the breakfast room. We then wandered a bit, stopping in Campo de’ Fiori I enjoyed an espresso macchiato and people watched from a table outside while the hubby chatted up an American expat inside the bar. We stopped into more churches and then looked into reservations to see the new Oltre Il Pantheon tour of the Neptune Basilica - had difficulty booking but ultimately succeeded in securing tickets for early afternoon, receiving an email confirmation of payment but no tickets.

Upon arrival to the Pantheon, the staff graciously allowed us to enter for the 45 minute tour with only our payment confirmation (never did the actual tickets come through). There were only 10 people in our group and the tour was worthwhile for the small €10 fee.

After, more churches and wandering led us back to Trastevere for an aperitivo at Tonnarello, then we enjoyed another street musician on the Ponte Sisto at just about 7:30pm before we made our way to my beloved Osteria da Mario for dinner. We were seated outside, one table from the exterior perimeter with only a handful of tables occupied. Long story short, it seems I made the foolish mistake of placing my purse of the chair back - something I know better and have always been careful not to do. At one point a street vendor approached offering flowers which we of course declined. It was just after 8:30pm when I went for my purse to pay the bill that I realized it was gone. It was not on my lap, under the table, nor on my seat back, my purse was nowhere to be found. My phone was still on my trusty wrist band so I begin the process of logging into accounts from my phone to lock cards. I normally only carry one, but given the challenges experienced with my cards this trip I was carrying three - which in hindsight made no sense, I should have left them at the hotel after I hit the ATM earlier in the day. I was also carrying all of the cash from the ATM withdrawal that day, even though my gut instinct had told me earlier I should leave half the cash in the safe but I ignored it and as a result was out the €300 or so in euros I had with me. As I was attempted to login to my first account to lock the card I got a text about a charge, for $235, followed by a second text from the bank indicating they declined a charge of $1,179 to the same account. I immediately confirmed I did not authorize the charge and they cancelled the card. I locked the next account and checked the activity to find 14 charges at the same location had already been processed against my account, all in the same amount just over $23/each. Finally when I locked my capitalone discover card, I am relieved to see there were no charges here. We spoke with the restaurant server to tell him what happened and to no surprise there was no sympathy, he was only worried about us paying him. Unsure what to do with no purse, cash or cards I semi-panicked, then offered to try paying by tap with my phone (something I have rarely done at home and never while traveling). It worked and we left with me super upset at myself realizing not only did I make a costly and careless mistake letting my guard down, but we now also have to deal with trying to get replacement passports.

Fortunately with 3 days until our departure we have time to file a police report; this was a bit of a goose chase to find the correct agency to do that. The hotel pointed us to the nearest carabinieri, but we were then referred to the polizia di stato in Trastevere. By the time we located the office and made the report it is nearly noon, with the embassy closing at 12:30.

Continued…

Continued…

We taxi’d over only to be told it was too late to process or even begin processing that day and they asked us to come back first thing the next day. And so we did, first in line and after paying the $165/each for emergency passports, we were assured they would be ready at 3pm. We opted to go ahead and stay nearby, heading to the Borghese for a walk around the gardens, at least able to check off another item from our intended itinerary this trip. With plenty of time to spare we made our way to the Spanish steps and down to the Trevi fountain before heading back to the vicinity of the embassy to await the pickup. Once we had the temporaries in our possession we decided to take it easy for our last evening, packing up the room and finally trying out Roscoli next door to our accommodations.

And so, our trip concluded with a taxi to the airport early the next morning, and had little issue getting through security and such with the temporary passports.

Thoughts/observations on this leg of our trip:

-our reservation request for the tomb of st peters and necropolis was denied (I requested it one month in advance)

-Hotel Smeraldo was larger than I expected in terms of guestrooms. Our room was nice but small. Comfortable (soft) bed.

-the hotel staff was helpful and caring of our situation.

-costly reminder not to let your guard down

Crystal,

Oh, no! I’m so sorry your purse was stolen…

It’s a good thing your phone was not in your purse and you were able to cancel your credit cards.

What type of wrist band do you have for your phone?

Thanks for the reminder not to let our guard down.