Or should I say lack of shower curtains? I am really curious as I really do not understand the thinking as it is soooo much easier to take a shower and not worry about water all over the floor if one has a shower curtain.I can understand small showers and bathrooms, but why no shower curtain?
I have run into this many times and figure there just must be some kind of explanation or reasoning behind this approach. Our rental in Spain last winter had a small tub and no shower curtain and it was such a pain that my husband began to take baths ( something he just does not do).
We even offered to buy one, but I think the UK landlord thought we were nuts as they have not had one in thirty years and see no need. Every time I took a shower, water would get all over the floor ( and I just got in the habit of taking them out on the terrace to dry afterwards as it was usually sunny and warm).
But what if it is in a place like the UK that is not sunny and warm ( as I have used them there too)? Do people normally not take a "real" shower like we do in the States in such a shower? Our house guests took a "prostitutes shower" ( very carefully washing essential body parts only) in order to not get the floor too wet.
Am I the only one who wonders about this European way?
Any answers to the "why" and "how" questions from those in the know?
( As I sit here in a charming, but low cost small hotel in Turkey with great wifi and terrific shower, wondering these silly thoughts late at night due to insomnia. BUT, I have run into a few in Europe lately which got me wondering again.)
As you might guess, you're not the first one here on ST to ponder this issue. If you do a FIND on the phrase "shower curtain", you will come up with 30+ hits.
Thanks Marian. I did not think to look at the search for such a question, but I could not see any real answers for the "why" question and I am still curious.
I DID enjoy some of the funny comments and ideas though and it was nice to know that I am not the only who gets frustrated by this.
Originally posted by WT: Our house guests took a "prostitutes shower" ( very carefully washing essential body parts only) in order to not get the floor too wet.
My mother always called this a "sponge bath", but your term is much more descriptive!
Yep, I don't get it either. No matter how hard I tried, I got the entire floor and toilet wet in our last hotel in Italy. At least with a bathtub and handheld shower head you can control the water a little more! I have more of an issue with those really tiny shower cubicles that you have to get into sideways!
I don't understand it either. Several of the dwellings that I have rented in Rome and Sorrento have had this problem. Only apartments that had old fashioned bathtubs did not have this problem. The shower doors have had gaps that you can see through, so I don't know how water is NOT supposed to get on the floor. I am afraid that I jsut let water get on the floor and mop it up like someone else described. I have put the towel on the radiator to dry off and jsut used that one on the floor repeatedly. I am frequently in Italy in feb when it is too cold to hang the towel outside some days and expect it to dry. I figured that it was another one of those "cultural" things like the Dish cloth bath towels instead of the fluffy terry bath towels. Last place I rented, I bought some inexpensive terry towels locally to use while we were there.
Posts: 3777 | Location: St Paul, MN | Registered: 10 February 2006
well for thing water is expensive in Europe and conservation is big here. You just dont let the shower running ,you wet,soap,rinse,dry quickly.
Having said that, I do have shower an enclosed one,fully Americanised. And, I splurge on water. But when you rent from local native folks its another story.Its cultural folks,another thrilling moment in your travel odyssea!!
Kathy (kaydee), staying in a home in Aix while she studies French, describes how she got off on a very wrong foot with her landlady because of that cultural shower difference pedmar describes. It's in this blog entry.
well for thing water is expensive in Europe and conservation is big here. You just dont let the shower running ,you wet,soap,rinse,dry quickly.
How do you keep the water warm while you are wetting and then rinsing? At my house I have to run the water for at least a few minutes to get all the cold water out of the pipes. If you turn it off, you have re-adjsut the hot and cold otherwise it is too cold or maybe too hot again, when you turn it back on to rinse.
Posts: 3777 | Location: St Paul, MN | Registered: 10 February 2006
I have to challenge this ongoing myth about the UK and showers !
I've come across curtainless showers in Italy, but never, ever in the UK, unless you mean the odd very large and deep purpose built ones that water has no chance of escaping from, even with the splashiest showerer (my friend has one of these in her huge bathroom)- and in which case, why would you need a curtain as well?
With other sorts of showers - you need a door or a shower curtain and we do have them (it is my life's work to keep them mould free)- we don't want water shooting across the floor anymore than anyone else !
Posts: 925 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 20 September 2006
Shower curtains are creepy especially hotel and holiday lets.. we tend to have screens but to have nothing at all is rather silly imo and asking for floods. I have been known not to choose holiday accomm if there is a shower curtain rather than a screen or a separate fully enclosed shower. UGH all that damp, slimy shower curtain fabric flapping around..I'm sure it would grow wondrous cultures should I care to take a swab.
"Wet rooms" are in but they are different all together because you don't need to worry about flooding with a central drainage system.
I don't care for the fahion of putting a bath or shower in the middle of your hotel room either. It's too much like bringing the tin bath in from the coal shed...! Wendy
Posts: 2747 | Location: Lightwater Surrey U K | Registered: 30 March 2003
don't care for the fahion of putting a bath or shower in the middle of your hotel room either. It's too much like bringing the tin bath in from the coal shed...!
A friend let a rather over the top designer loose on her house and he put the bath in the middle of the room, up on a sort of a pedestal (ie you had to climb up three steps). I thought it looked like an oversized font and she said it was too intimidating to use, that she felt like she was in a soap commercial !
Posts: 925 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 20 September 2006
But when you rent from local native folks its another story
I can assure you that every respectable Italian has either a shower curtain or shower doors at home. This is not cultural!!! It drives me crazy!!! This is a bad policy of hotels and rentals. Cleaning enclosed showers takes a lot of time (read costs). Laundering shower curtains as often as needed takes a lot of time (read costs). So they just do not put anything. My daughter almost broke her head falling into the wet floor of a small hotel room a couple of years later. I'll never go back again.
I generally find shower curtains or doors in better places, not necessarily luxurious ones but where I see that people cares about their guests. It is like bad coffee. There is no justification for bad coffee in a hotel breakfast, in Italy nor anywhere else!!!
I can assure you that every respectable Italian has either a shower
Not in Milano where i have stayed and rented. Its folks experiences. and we are talking rental places not folks home. I was just referring to my home..that do have enclosures on both my shower room and bathroom tub.
Yes, I do realize that, but when one says "it is cultural" to me that comprises also "the natives".
For me (I am Italian and B&B owner) it is cultural to treat my guests with the same level of basic comfort that I would have for myself. A shower curtain or door is essential. Unfortunately many hotel or rental owners do not seem to think the same and prefer to save pennies to their guests discomfort. I hate it even though I am a native.
How do you keep the water warm while you are wetting and then rinsing? At my house I have to run the water for at least a few minutes to get all the cold water out of the pipes.
Dragonpat, most showers here can either be mounted onto the wall or can be hand held. It might not be always so, but it is often so. What a person can do is get wet, close the water, wash, and then hold the shower head towards the floor, readjusting the water temperature once again before rinsing off.
This is how most Europeans I know use a shower, by holding the shower head in the hand for a portion of the shower when rinsing off.
Originally posted by Panda: I have to challenge this ongoing myth about the UK and showers !
I've come across curtainless showers in Italy, but never, ever in the UK, !
I agree never have I seen that in the UK, only in Europe and mostly in warmer countries seems like...we rented a hotel in Athens that was a four star (huh! like that meant antyhing in 1982) our room was on the top floor with french doors going out to the roof, sounds nice right? One of the doors the glass was punched out in the upper corner and in the bath, which was an all tiled, toilet and shower with no curtain which actually I don't mind but with just a pipe coming out of the wall. We had to go downstairs and they gave us the handheld shower thingy to stick on the pipe, obviously had some problem with theft??? Hee! Anyway water goes everywhere but when there is a drain in the floor who cares? Just step carefully and put the toilet seat down.
Posts: 1372 | Location: Seattle - next is Isla Mujeres,MX in December, then its Paris in March, then hopefully England! | Registered: 02 May 2005
I always bring a few new, cheap ,shower curtains with me to Europe, and take down the ones there and replace them with mine, which I then know are clean. Then if it flaps and sticks, I know they're my germs!!
I first learned about the quick type of showers during my Navy days in the 1960's when travelling across the Pacific and fresh water had to be made on board ship and they were called 'sea showers'. At a B&B/Pub in northern England, the shower was several doors down from my room and it was in a very small room, closetlike. I went down to it, undressed. I found that I could not open the shower door while I was in the room. I had to put my pants back on, open the outside door, open the shower door, go back in, close the outer door, take off my pants and throw them behind the shower door.
prefer to save pennies to their guests discomfort. I hate it even though I am a native
its the way it is here in Europe:and I am native too Spanish and French citizen. its done all over,that is the idea of the thread,i just admit it happens all the time. to save water because they/we have been raised that way. I think you just go along with as a travel experience,its different so its the surrounding;enjoy it and do not worry about the inconveniences of the old world;anyway that is what makes folks come back too,different things.
ALWAYS puzzled me too :-) until I bought a place in Italy...and tried to take a nice, long, hot shower in January...the nice kind that steams up the whole room so you are nice and toasty when you get out :-)...
HA!! I got about halfway through washing my hair...forget about shaving!!! hot water tanks are much smaller...and elecrtic (and yes, mounted in the bathroom, so there is no wait - water is hot straight away!)...so learned that I can either have a nice soak in the hot shower and relax OR wash and condition my long hair...not enough hot water for both :-( sad, but true.
I think the very long, luxurious shower is indeed an American habit ;-) Also found it's helpful to either be the first one in the shower :-) or wait 5-10 minutes before getting in to give the water time to heat up agin. That said, the very first thing (not kidding!) I bought for the house was a shower curtain rod and shower curtain and liner (plastic so I can change it often! oh - tip...if you are one of those people who travels with their own shower curtain liner :-) many showers in Italy anyway...take the "extra-long" length)!
We had one of those curtainless showers in our beautiful hotel in Civita Castellana. The tub was narrow but almost 6 foot long and my Loooong frame fit in it nicely. I just stretched out in the tub and kept the water spraying over me.
No place to hang a shower curtain so we just dealt with it.
"When in Rome ...."
Doug
ANCORA IMPARO
Posts: 2102 | Location: Winter Park, FL | Registered: 18 May 2005
Slow Travel Talk 
