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... And then there was none.

March 29th, 2007

So there we were, on a short holiday in Italy. On Thursday, 22 March we decided to visit Ravenna together with a friend. Due to environmental regulations in that area, Thursday driving is restricted to cars with three people or more (and/or Euro-4 designation). Alas, our Fiat Stilo Abarth (2002) does not meet these criteria, but our friend offered to drive us. So at 11:00 we parked our car, among those of other carpoolers, on a parking lot just outside Castel S. Pietro, and drove to Ravenna with our friend.

Ravenna was nice. The weather was nice, the food was excellent (hey, it’s in Romagna – what do you expect?):

When we came back to the parking lot at 16:00 I noticed the doors of the car were unlocked and something seemed to be missing from the car. For reference, this is roughly what the interior should have looked like:

(“good”)

Unfortunately, this is what we found:

(“bad”)

It seems the thief (thieves?) managed to pry open the left rear door, climb into the front seat (leaving a footprint on the rear seat) and remove the stereo/navigation/etc. console. As far as I know, this thing only works in the Fiat Stilo Abarth, so they must have been on the lookout for this particular piece of equipment specifically. Seeing that this was the only item taken, that seems likely. They didn’t even search the rest of the car for other valuables.

Ah well, apart from this mishap, it was a nice day: we had a nice walk around Ravenna, ate some great piadine and, in Imola, saw a guy in a bar who could have been the twin brother of Al Pacino.