High on a hilltop in northern Italy, behind the stone walls of a medieval Umbrian town called Montone, we made a discovery that no overseas traveler could wish for: One of our passports was missing.
After 13 days of well-planned sightseeing, great food and glorious October weather, my wife, Joyce, and I found our itinerary unraveling into a spaghetti-like tangle.
Only two full days remained until our flight home. Joyce would need her passports to board the plane. What now? The answer: 48 tense hours that left us grateful for helpful strangers and keenly sensitive to life's ripple effects.
We weren't careless. We'd brought photocopies of our passports and were wary of pickpockets. Joyce kept her passport in a travel purse, inside a pocket within another pocket, each protected by a zipper and covered by the purse's front flap. The purse's strap was always around her neck. Only when we were at dinner in a hotel did she leave the purse in our locked room, in a safe when provided.
Even so, the passport had gone AWOL.
That's when Italian hospitality kicked in. The proprietress of Montone's La Locanda del Capitano, where we were staying, spoke excellent English. She calmed Joyce down and, late on a Saturday afternoon, called the U.S. Embassy in Rome. A staffer advised downloading passport application forms and appearing at the U.S. Consulate in Milan at 8:30 a.m. Monday.
After learning that our flight was leaving from Venice — a long way from Milan and Montone — our new friend called the embassy again and learned we could go instead to the U.S. Consulate in Florence, only two hours away. Then she printed out all the forms and directed us to a small shop where we made a copy of Joyce's driver's license.
The next morning, Sunday, we drove to nearby Humbertide to report our missing passport to the police, a step recommended on one of the forms. After we stopped to ask directions to the police station, a stranger — another helpful Italian — offered to lead the way in his car.