I do feel for the OP... what a terrible thing to happen, and at the end of your trip, of course it would leave you with a sour taste In your mouth. I agree that you can't blame an entire city for the crime, but I don't blame you for your bad attitude toward Pisa. My husband's laptop was stolen from the trunk of a rental car in San Jose. He travels there often, and we always joke about how much he hates San Jose. We both know he shouldn't have left the laptop there, but he did, and it happened. And he hates San Jose.... but it's tongue in cheek.

I have a related question, though. We will be traveling in Germany next week. Leaving FRA and traveling to Baden Baden, and we were planning to stop in Heidelberg en route. I had heard that there are luggage-sized lockers at the Heidelberg train station. It's a locker - I assume safe - but this post did make me want to ask. Any thoughts on the wisdom of this? Lockers in train stations - yay or nay ?

I will, thanks to the OP, remember to keep my passport on my person and not in the locker.... that thing is basically glued to my body on any overseas trip.

get a car with a trunk that is separate from rest of car. And park in a secure area- Germany does not I believe have the problems of Italy as to that extent. Train station lockers are safe but most are fairly small - there is a manual left-luggage area usually too but charge by bag - in Germany I would not worry too much but try to have little showing in your vehicle.

please stop with the sanctimonious replies

Sanctimonious???

Theft from rental cars is not exactly unheard of. People do what they can to prevent it from happening. Anywhere in the world.

Well the sanctimonious replies were or should not have been meant for OP for for benefit of others - pointing out mistakes made so others can benefit. But yes in some cases way too sanctimonious!

Don't blame the victim.

Definition of sanctimonious from Merriam-Webster:

"hypocritically pious or devout"

Not applicable.

Leaving luggage at train station is normally fine (ensuring it's has security). The one I went to had a staffed office as well as lockers. I did this in Poland as the place we were staying at no storage for guests. Check out was 11am and our flight was at 5pm. So I used the storage for almost almost 4 hrs. I kept my passport under my clothes in a money belt.
Have fun at Heinkein!

Sanctimonious is simply not the word you are looking for here.

As far as "blaming the victim"... crime is never OK. but you can do things to reduce the chances of it happening to you. That's not laying "blame".

It's a slippery slope. You're saying that the poster did not do things to reduce the chances of becoming a victim. So logically you are prescribing at least some blame to the victim. A crime is the fault of the perpetrator 100% , not the victim.

What a ridiculous comment. I guess insulting people with common sense makes you feel smart. It actually does the opposite. But ignorance as they say is bliss.

Sanctimonious is simply not the word you are looking for here.<

moralizing, preachy, smug, superior, priggish, hypocritical are all synonyms for sanctimonious according to dictionary and all apply to comments of some who reacted to OP above.

sanc·ti·mo·ni·ous
ˌsaNG(k)təˈmōnēəs/
adjective
DEROGATORY

1. making a show of being morally superior to other people.
   "what happened to all the sanctimonious talk about putting his family first?"synonyms:self-righteous, holier-than-thou, pious, pietistic, churchy, moralizing, preachy, smug, superior, priggish, hypocritical, insincere;
   informalgoody-goody
   "no one wants to hear your sanctimonious hot air"

I am not sure it is always the case that the victim is entirely blameless. In the cases I mentioned above of people leaving their cars unlocked with valuables inside, in an area where they know that thefts have already occurred, I do think some blame attaches to the victim. In one case a gun was stolen, and the thief was subsequently killed by police because of the gun. Without the gun he would probably still be alive and the cop would not have had to shoot him. Of course the thief was at fault, but the car owner was at best careless.

There is nothing "morally superior" about not leaving your luggage in the trunk of a rental car.

Q have to read a bit better - "superior" "preachy" "smug" are synonyms for sanctimonious - nothing to do with morally superior necessarily. Pay a little more attention to what I writ before posting!

It's been a very long time, if ever, that the cars I rented had a separate trunk. Even in 1971 the Simca we leased was a hatchback. If you are renting a smaller car, chances are that it will be a hatchback.

Amen, Suze. (How's that for sanctimonious?) It's also a live and learn situation: you always try to minimize risk. Unfortunately, there were some pretty steep consequences for the OP.

As a solo traveler who has sometimes faced this decision, all I can say is that it is a very personal decision about risk vs. reward. I've definitely left luggage in the trunk (NEVER just a covered space) of a car so that I can see something en route, but I always do so with awareness of the risk -- and I am certainly not saying that anyone else should do so or not! FWIW, here's my personal list of relevant considerations:
- Don’t ever leave anything in the car that can be seen through its windows
- Always keep key documents including your passport, cash, and bank cards with you (preferably in a under-the-clothes passport pouch, with only what you need for the day outside of that pouch), and be sure that that pouch also has a copy of any key documents you might need on one or more days
- Don’t ever move things from the interior to the trunk in the place that you will leave the car – do that somewhere else, even if it means pulling off the road briefly a mile or so from your destination
- Try to park in a well lighted area where other people might have eyes-on (not so much because they might act, but because their presence might discourage thieves)
- If possible, park your car in a way that would make it difficult for thieves to gain anything – for example, consider backing the car up to a wall to make it difficult to open the trunk or remove anything from it
- Be sure you know how to contact your rental car agency, insurance agency, and local authorities as soon as possible after any incursion
- Assess the costs and risks of leaving your luggage in the car – and not just the dollar costs (with due consideration to coverage through insurance), but also the temporal costs if your luggage is lost, which would include time to file a claim and to replace your most needed items, but also the costs to you in time if you decide to always forego parking with luggage in your car (and that, of course, includes the lost opportunities to see things that you would have seen if you had stopped en route).

I've never hesitated to leave luggage -- but nothing irreplaceable! -- in a locker or at a left-luggage desk. I never leave my passport or spare CCs or cash anywhere. Whether to leave a costly item (e.g., a personal computer) in a luggage locker or at a left-luggage desk is, I think, a personal choice. I wouldn't hesitate; YMMV.

If you're renting a smaller car, I don't see how you can avoid having a hatchback - I've never seen a compact or economy with a trunk. Just thinking ahead for myself, I plan on driving solo in Italy for a week. Most of the time I'll be based in one place and can leave my stuff at the hotel, but I plan on one day when I'll make a stop in Cerveteri and one in Tarquinia, and I don't see a way to avoid having my luggage in the storage space with cover. I guess I'll just have to take my chances. For what it's worth, the last car I rented like that had a cover that came down automatically, so it wasn't like the space would only be covered if you had a reason.

And I always have my passport on my body, under my clothes. It's the very safest place it can be.

I work with gemut.com when making my arrangements for renting a car in Europe, and I discuss this very issue with them. Even as a solo traveler seeking a small (economy) car, I haven't ended up with a hatchback since I started asking about it. I have requested, and gotten, economy cars with a trunk.

Yep...and if you hadn't been wearing that short skirt, or if you weren't drinking, or if you weren't in that kind of bar, or you didn't "give signals"...
We've all heard those kinds of attitudes.