Traveler’s Guide to European Rest Rooms by N P

Being bladder challenged, I have always tried to follow the philosophy when traveling to “never pass up a chance to pee”. On this particular trip, that philosophy has developed into some unique observations. During our first night’s stay in Stresa, Italy, our hotel bathroom was equipped with a bidet. If you are from the US don’t expect instructions on its use.

On day 2, we took an excursion to the beautiful glacial lake resort of Como and were told by Danny, our tour guide, that there were NO public rest rooms available and only two businesses with facilities. Using the above mentioned philosophy I checked out both of them. The first was located in the local McDonalds, which is one stall, unisex, with a ten to 15 minutes wait because of the long line. Keep in mind that handicapped accessibility is not a consideration in Europe – this rest room had a person going down a long narrow hallway. Upon arrival I found no toilet paper, but some clever patron has brought in a 2-inch thick pad of hand paper towels from the washbasin. There is also strangely enough no toilet seat. The second rest room in Como is located in the local silk store (silk clothing and scarves, etc). This one is in relatively good shape—clean, unisex, t.p, available but no toilet seat.

On the road from Stresa to Venice we stopped at a travel plaza for lunch. This would be the equivalent of a Petro truck stop in Texas, but much larger.
Now we’re getting “uptown”. There are 4 stalls in the men’s rest room, but no urinals. Two stalls have t.p.; two do not—and three out of 4 are missing toilet seats.

We arrive in Venice; unload our luggage at the dock to be placed on the ship and head into the embarkation building. Here we have two stalls for the men, both with t.p., but neither have toilet seats. Are you beginning to see a pattern, here? I’m curious enough at this point to ask Danny, our tour guide about it. And he says that he doesn’t know why, but toilet seats are missing all over Italy and Greece. I ask him if it’s not a possibility that some society is trying to get the world’s largest collection of toilet seats and toilet paper in the world.

With the ship in port at Bari, Italy, we took a tour out to see the trulli houses and found at the bus parking area, public toilets were pay as you go. The adult charge was .50 Euro—equivalent of 70 cents American. There is a lady sitting at a table outside the bathroom area collecting the money and regulating the flow of traffic. The ladies, as usual, had a long waiting line, but after paying my money, I was able to get in immediately to find (guess what!)- despite the price) NO TOILET SEATS. At least paper was available.

Olympia, Greece and a tour visit to the 2500-year-old Olympic village was absolutely impressive. There are two public rest room facilities available and with 3 Cruise ships in the harbor approx 6000 adults of which at least half had to be in the village when we were there. The waiting line was about 30 min, --both toilets were unisex, neither had toilet paper. The ladies were passing out Kleenex and warning others of the conditions. NEITHER HAD TOILET SEATS.

From there we had a short walk up to the Olympic museum. They had some of the most impressive statuary that I have ever seen in my life. The building was very modern and immaculate. The men’s rest room had 3 or 4 stalls and all had toilet paper and ALL HAD TOILET SEATS.

The morning tour to the picturesque city of Santorini, Greece was short and I did not have an urgent need to find a public restroom, however, after reaching the top and waiting in a horribly long line to catch the cable car down, I was certainly wishing I had found one before boarding the tenders taking us back to the cruise ship.

By afternoon we are in Mykonos and walked up the hill to find the Internet café. After an orange juice and a beer at the café, I asked for the facilities and was directed to a half sized door in the alleyway outside the back door of the establishment. There was no lock on the door, so one would have to keep a leg against the door to insure privacy. This one had a flush tank above the toilet with a chain that was pulled. Paper towels, soap, and toilet paper were available, but NO toilet seat.

I thought things were going to change in Rhodes. As we went to the Acropolis with its 500+ steps up and then again down, and found the facilities to be in excellent condition including toilet seats. We stopped for lunch at an elegant hotel resort and the facilities were superb. However just prior to boarding the bus to go back to the ship, I checked out the facilities in the medieval city and VOILA! They were indeed medieval, no seats, no towels, no toilet paper.
We’re on board all day and by the way we have excellent facilities both in our cabin and wherever you might find yourself out and about on the ship.

And we have Croatia to go—I will keep you posted. As soon as I return, I will go on E-Bay and do a search for slightly used, excellent condition European toilet seats and see what the going rate is.