It's always best not to have to pay that Carabinieri a visit. It usually means something unpleasant. At the very least you lost your ID card and need to make the loss official in order to get a new one. Or, on our case, we had to report the suspected theft of a girls purse with two beater mobile phones in it. But whatever you misshap, the carabinieri are alway, always polite. They may still be one of western Europe's only militarily organized civilian police forces, but since they are the ones stationed for years at a time in the smaller, out of the way towns they are kind of like the local sheriffs: they know everyone read more