We will be travelling with our 3 yr old daughter in Italy.

Just wondering what the situation is iwth public rest rooms as I know my daughter will want to make a few trips to the rest room while we are out all day in Rome, Florence and Venice.

Also, do smaller towns in Tuscany have public rest rooms?

http://expatsinitaly.com/judith/?p=190
answers the question for Florence. Once you see how to find their answer, you may find similar lists for other cities.

In most places you can use bars. The quality is all over the place, but ask and most people can tell you which toilet is better. I know of one or two in my small city that have shower and bidets, one of which is always spotless and one which sometimes needs cleaning. I don't suppose it would be a great idea to plan on showering in a bar, but it is there! So maybe people who ask are allowed to. Maybe they pay to. I don't know why there is a shower in that bar toilet.

Probably because the space was not built as a bar originally.

Public restrooms are quite rares, we use bars.

In one case the bar is old and the bathroom new. They meant it. Wonder why? It is our local old guys bar.

When we are travelling we always use a museum toilet and really refresh. Without exception they are the cleanest. Everytime we eat in a restaurant, when we pay the bill we ask whoever is travelling with us that this is the moment to use the loo. Next the service station on the motorways are ok, sometimes you have to pay also train stations. Bars are a poor fourth on our list they can be really bad, but 4 out of 5 they are ok.
Here in Italy it is ok for men and small children to go on the side of the road. This thought may sound like an absolute last resort but when you gotta go ... at least you know.

va bene

Christine

Perhaps the Shower in the Bar bathroom is for staff use?

When we had our six year-old with us - it was always bars, one of us (or all of us) would order a drink (espresso, bottle of water, orangina), and she'd hit the restroom. Worked fine and never had a problem.

quote:

Originally posted by Judith in Umbria:
I don't suppose it would be a great idea to plan on showering in a bar, but it is there!

It's a legal requirements now to have a working shower in a newly built public toilet. This does not mean that it gets used, just that by law it must be built.

Really!' How curious!

Make sure you take your own toilet paper with you. Unless there is an attendant, there is frequently no toilet paper. Charmin to go is sold in the travel section of Target stores. There is no hole in the center of the roll, so is is compact enough to carry with you.
Make sure that you carry change with you. There are often pay toilets, like at Termini, but they don't take paper money or the bill changers are often broke.
I have bought bottles of water (last thing I needed) at small grocery stores in order to use their toilet. I throw the water out so I don't have to carry it. In the Sorrento Harbor I have bought drinks I didn't need at a bar in order to use the toilet.
In Ostia I have used the ground in back of a wall becasue there is only one toilet area there by the cafeteria. Charmin to go is handy there also. Carry a ziploc bag for the used Charmin and dispose of it later.

shower- to wake up the drunks at closing time?
RR

Be aware that some rest rooms have toilets which are on the ground and you need to squat over them. When we traveled with our young daughters, we found these types of toilets in a very nice restaurant in Modena and also the public restroom outside the walls of Spello. I had to take the pants and underwear off the four year old (but left the shoes on) and hold her over the toilet as she had never done the squat thing before. Hopefully, you won't run into these kinds of toilets, but with a three year old girl, I advise that she wears a dress or some other clothing that is easy to handle while squatting.

quote:

Originally posted by Gloria - Casina di Rosa:
Really!' How curious!

I thought so when my ex had to do the toilet in his bookshop: Tuscany, at least at the time, required that there was a shower.

A lot of people like to kvetch and moan about the vulgarity of MacDonald's in the proximity of Rome's most glorious monuments, but if you ever want a clean restroom in a hurry, Mickey D's is the ticket. I'll never forget the time I was seated at a cafe beside the Pantheon (it was the place with the cane chairs and pink tablecloths on the left hand side as you're facing the monument), anyway, I'd been on a pub crawl and was finishing off my 4th or 5th beer. Went to find the facilities and the waiter said I was out-of-luck. They were out of service. I ran across the piazza to the much-maligned Pantheon MacDonald's and was never so happy to see porcelain in my life. another thing you can do is just go into any upscale hotel, walk up to the desk of the concierge and ask if you can use the hotel's facilities. I've never had anyone refuse my request, but this works best if you don't walk around dress like a bum--no ripped jeans & dirty sneakers.

Does anyone have any explanation for the toilets without seats in both men's and women's bathrooms? We see them even in the restrooms of nice trattorias and cafes. I can understand a gas station not wanting to bother to clean or replace toilet seats, but a restaurant?

We've asked a few Italian friends who have guessed that it might be because no one wants to clean the seats. But they also seemed to wonder about it as well. Any ideas?

Most Italian will not sit on the public toilets anyway, or if we do we first over them in TP. So, it's quite pointless, according to most shopowners or resturant owners, to put on the WC a seat that will never be used.

quote:

Does anyone have any explanation for the toilets without seats in both men's and women's bathrooms? We see them even in the restrooms of nice trattorias and cafes. I can understand a gas station not wanting to bother to clean or replace toilet seats, but a restaurant?

I have wondered about this myself. I had thought that it was jsut vandalism, but maybe there is another explanation?

I can usually find a public restroom or a friendly cafe when I'm in need. But the best/worst thing about European toilets is how varied they are. I have sometimes spent an embarassing amount of time in a bathroom trying to figure out how to flush or turn on the tap water!!! You should see me pulling, pushing and twisting every part. Once, I needed a passing nun who didn't speak any English to show me the pedal on the floor nearby. LOL!

quote:

Originally posted by dragonpat:
I have wondered about this myself. I had thought that it was jsut vandalism, but maybe there is another explanation?

As I wrote above, the seats don't get installed because nobody sits on the public toilets! I mean, would you sit on everyone else's waste?

In the center of large cities, department-store rest rooms are a good choice. But NOT if you are with a young child who needs to go NOW, as sometimes there is a line of people waiting to use them.

Alice,
Thanks for your explanation re:lack of toilet seats. I find it fascinating that every person (eldery, young, disabled, pregnant, sick, tired, etc.) must somehow more adept at this than I.

I would think that covering the seat with TP is far better than the balancing act that these seatless toilets require. I thought that the myth about catching things from toilet seats had been dispelled. Sure, it's not pleasant to consider how many people use the same seat, but I'll take comfort over caution in this particular case!

[I'm trying to discuss this without too much detail! I hope I succeeded.]

From cleaning my own toilet, I have noticed that the waste does not get on the seats. At least not on the top side and rim where there might be body contact. I have noticed that American men lift the toilet seat when they use it, avoiding getting urine on the seat at all. Maybe men of other nationalities are not as considerate? So that I am puzzled by this preception that the toilet seat itself is so dirty. All the Italian apartments I have rented had toilet seats. I guess that it is only public toilet seems that are preceived to be dirty. Women must squat at only public receptacles and not at home?
In Italy, I just sit on the procelain receptacle provided and figure that this is jsut some cultural thing. But since men eliminate most of their waste from a standing position, it seems like women are getting a bad deal with toilets not having toilet seats.

Getting an Italian man not to spread his fluids all over the lace is not an easy task. And, right. We do sit in private places: it's public toilets that I would not near with my bottom. In Italy there's quite a market for disposable paper covers and other things used to make public toilets more or less accessible to women who can't squat. personally, I love the Turkish toilet: so clean!

We have encountered so many types of toilets. I find it really interesting and amusing and have really had a few great laughs over the toilets.

It is something very humbling, being a relatively intellegent person (that can't spell), standing in front of a toilet / sink / door to get into the toilet AND HAVING NO CLUE WHAT OR WERE TO PUSH.

This has been a popular topic on Slow Talk. There was a June 2006 discussion (here) which contains a link to a March 2005 discussion (here) plus a link to The Bathroom Diaries. Enjoy!