We had been robbed, or at least that’s what we thought. The nine of us stood frozen in one spot on the baking pavement. We stared at each other in disbelief, torn between anger and shock. Emily began to speak but trailed off in impotent gibberish. Mark opened his mouth, moved his lips but nothing came out. We were too flabbergasted to make sense of it. The feeling of ‘what the hell do we do now’ made us all brainless.
It all started when I rented a van at the Florence, Italy, airport. Tuscany, where the 8 passengers in my group and I would spend the week, was too mountainous for train service so renting a 9 passenger van seemed like the best way to get around. I don’t believe in bad signs foretelling the future, so I ignored the sliding door that fell off with regularity, the difficulty of finding parking spaces, and maxing out my credit card whenever I filled the tank. I figured it was all worth it.
Until Siena.
Saturday in Siena was market day, so the city was busy with crowds, snack and souvenir stands, and political marches. The free parking spots on the street were all taken, so I drove to the public lot near the stadium. After a bit of searching, I squeezed the van into a spot meant for a Vespa. We grabbed our backpacks and water bottles and headed into the city without a thought for the safety of the van.
Even with the crowds, Siena was wonderful, filled with green, red and yellow wind-whipped flags, music from roaming bands, and the smell of fresh pizza wafting out of little cafes. We wandered the medieval lanes, stopped at leather and glass shops, enjoyed a lunch of ravioli and wine, and as the temperature climbed and the sun set, we headed back to the van for the return drive to our hotel in Volterra, about an hour away.
We had been in crowds all day but few people were headed in our direction. Since the markets and museums had closed, I expected a lot of people would be walking back to their cars for the drive home but by the time we reached the arched entrance to the parking lot, we were alone. None of us remarked on this because we were too occupied with talking about dinner that night and what restaurant we would go to. The day had been terrific, at least to that point.
We stepped through the tunnel entrance into the lot. Thousands of vehicles had parked there earlier in the morning so I had made some mental notes to be able to find my van quickly at day’s end. I had parked it directly in front of a lamp post smeared with the cherry red paint from a car that had side-swiped it. After a long day of exploring Siena, I knew we would all want to pile in quickly, start the air co
nditioning and glide home to wine and dinner. What we saw, or rather didn’t see, stopped us in our tracks, dumbstruck.
“Where is the car?” Emily asked, as we all looked around in curiosity. What we saw was only a bare expanse of pavement. “Where is the car? Where’s our VAN?” Emily was now shouting. “We parked it right over there,” she said and pointed. We walked over to the rectangle of baking asphalt where the van had been, in front of a lamp post smeared with the cherry red paint from a car that had side-swiped it, and stared down at the spot. “Right here!”, Emily said. At that moment, her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my gosh! Oh no! We’ve been robbed!!”, she said.
Thieves had stolen our dented, tobacco fouled, sticky-floored, one-head-light van. My first thought was not how the hell do we get back to Volterra, but rather, that the robbers must have really poor taste in cars. Why bother to steal a dumpster, a vehicle any self-respecting Italian would not be caught dead in? Out on the street were Lamborghinis and Mercedes. Sexy cars, cars with a message that said ‘money, youth, beauty’. Mine had a message, all right, but the message was ‘destitute, old, ugly’. These robbers were desperate. Then I glanced around and noticed that the entire parking lot was empty, as if all the vehicles had been stolen. The empty car park should have been a clue, but at that point we were too tired and angry to put the puzzle together. Instead, 9 adults stood around staring at an empty rectangle of asphalt as if we could, by power of thought alone, conjure up a van. We must have looked like a cult, huddled in a misshapen circle, our heads bobbing and fists shaking.
Then a bit of reality sank in, at least for me. How the hell are we going to get back to Volterra? How was I going to pay for a missing van, rented in my name? There were no trains, no van and no hope anyone would give 9 bedraggled hitchhikers a ride back to Volterra. Since conjuring up a van out of thin air was not working, I decided that reporting the loss to the police was step one. Everyone nodded, picked up their water bottles, packages and backpacks and we made our way out to the street.
We found a policeman, Sergeant Giorgio was on his name tag, directing a surge of pedestrians headed toward the local stadium that towered above the neighborhood. We heard the muted roar of the crowd and figured there was a soccer game later. In Italian, I said good afternoon to Giorgio and he nodded his head and returned the greeting.
“Our rental van has been stolen,” I said and showed him a photo of the missing van. “It was parked in the stadium public lot and now it’s gone.”
He held my phone and looked at the photo, then up at me. Without any mention of the theft, he said,
“Why did you rent such an ugly van? I do not understand how you can drive such a piece of trash!”
I was speechless. What part of the word ‘stolen’ didn’t he get? He was completely unconcerned that grand theft larceny had just taken place in his city.
I said, “Yes, the van is ugly but that isn’t important. The vehicle has been stolen. That is important!”
Sergeant Giorgio continued to stare at the photo as if he were studying a diseased rat. “It is covered in dents and rust. And a headlight is hanging out of it.” he said. “It is very ugly.”
Exasperated, I said, “I know it’s ugly but all the cute vans were already rented out.” Emily tugged on my sleeve as a warning not to get too worked up. “I just want it back,” I said. He stared at the photo and shook his head.
We were getting nowhere. I realized I would have to give Sergeant Giorgio a good reason why I rented such a dump.
“Sargeant”, I said, “I know it is ugly but the ugly van was cheaper. There was an ugly van discount at Hertz.”
“Oh,’ he said and brightened. “Now I understand. Of course. Well, your ugly, cheap van was towed away.”
“Towed away?”, I said. “You mean, because it was ugly?”
“No,” he said. “It was towed away because it was parked at the stadium lot after 4pm. When we have soccer, that car park must be empty by 4pm.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Was there a sign to leave by 4pm,” I said.
“No, but we all know to be out by that time,” he shrugged, as if it was universal knowledge.
“Go to the police station, there,” he pointed. “You pay Sergeant Antonelli for the ticket.” He tipped his hat to me, waved to my group and went back to directing the crowd. I had heard of ‘speed traps’ but never ‘parking traps’.
At the police station, Sargent Antonelli was at the desk. He matched the license number tag on my keys with a parking ticket and pushed the pink onion skin copy toward me. I looked at the thin paper. €25, about $32. Pretty cheap. I paid Antonelli the ticket fee and asked,
“Can I pay the towing charge here?”
“No,” he said.
I waited for an explanation that didn’t come. A few seconds passed.
“Excuse me, but where do I pay the towing charge?” I asked.
“At Giancarlo’s,” he said. More silence. I began to tap my fingers on the counter
“Who is Giancarlo?” I asked.
“He towed your car,” Antonelli said. By now I was irritated.
“OK, where is Giancarlo?”, I said.
“At his shop.” More silence. We were playing 20 questions and I was losing.
“Where. Is. Giancarlo’s Shop?” I said, trying to control my anger.
“Go out. Turn left.”
Finally, I thought, now I had made progress.
“Thank you. So I can walk to Giancarlo’s?”, I said.
“Yes,” he said, and nodded.
I thought if I can walk there, it can’t be far. I had reached the door when I looked back and asked.
“By the way, how far is Giancarlo’s?”
Sergeant Antonelli moved only his lips and said, “55 Kilometers”.
30 miles. I found a cab.
The taxi driver saw the pink onion skin in my hand and without looking at it said, “Giancarlo’s, right?” and I nodded. “This is my fifth time to Giancarlo’s today,” he said. Parking trap, I thought again.
A while later we pulled up to Giancarlo’s Towing Service, an old gas station with a Walmart-sized parking lot filled with towed vehicles, heat shimmering from the rooftops. I paid the €85 taxi fare, about $100, and got in line with everyone else paying a towing charge. Giancarlo sat at a desk in front of a long line of whining, frustrated customers.
‘’Did you see a sign,” one middle aged lady in front of me said to her companion. “I didn’t see a sign, there was no sign. They do this on purpose. NO SIGN. How was I supposed to know I had to be out by 4pm? This is a scam. We’re being robbed. I’ll refuse to pay.”
Everyone around her nodded in agreement but in the end we all paid.
Two young girls offered Giancarlo, who appeared to be in his mid 80s, a threesome date with lots of ‘bunga bunga’’ but he just scowled at them through wooly caterpillar eyebrows. In a frog-like voice, Giancarlo croaked, “No bunga bunga. No cash. No car.” I didn’t intend to offer him a date, so just showed him my keys with the license number tag and asked for the bill. €290, about $325. “Credit card?”, I asked. Giancarlo looked at me as if I needed medication. I paid cash, reluctantly he gave me a receipt, and I went out to look for the van in an ocean of scalding metal and diesel fumes.
I was in a foul mood, determined to let it ruin an otherwise good day. A lot of energy went into being this angry and I refused to give it up easily. After all, what good was a bad mood if I just threw it away? I had to get something out of it. The day had cost me nearly $500 and hours of lost time. I was hot, tired, enraged and was going to enjoy it.
I picked up my people back at the Siena cafe where I’d left them holding glasses of wine and nibbling snacks, and headed back toward Volterra. Their good mood was irritating. We drove along like this for quite a while. They laughed, I scowled. I could scowl all night if I wanted to and I guess I wanted to.
About a half hour outside of Volterra I saw a billboard the size of an apartment building. Usually roadside advertisements in Italy are small and discreet. Not this one. It had a brilliant blue background and in the foreground a giant gleaming bus filled with smiling passengers. Stenciled across it was, “LA PROSSIMA VOLTA, PRENI L’AUTOBUS!”.
The sign was such a shock I didn’t even realize I had driven off the road to get a better look. First I just stared at it, then I belted out a laugh, not a guffaw, but a full-throated belly laugh. Tears rolled down my face, I rocked back and forth and shook with laughter. My people stopped in mid conversation to stare at 
me. I hadn’t spoken since Siena but here I was laughing like a school kid at a good joke, hardly able to get my breath, my bad mood gone instantly. I pointed to the sign and read out loud, LA PROSSIMA VOLTA, PRENI L’AUTOBUS! and translated through the tears, “NEXT TIME, TAKE THE BUS”. I was laughing so hard, I could hardly get the van back in first gear.
Later, back in Volterra, I sat on the veranda of the Hotel Villa Nencini with a glass of Montepulciano, gazing at the green, rolling valley below and pondering the day. So many things had gone wrong with this van, maybe the roadside billboard was right. Emily had said it was a ‘sign from heaven’. I told her that actually, it was just a sign from the Colle Val Delsa Bus Company, not from heaven. Yet, the billboard had appeared at an odd moment. Maybe Emily was right. Who knows?
I’m still not sure but I do know this. The next time I’m in Tuscany, we’ll take the bus.
