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The Clean Loo
Guide to Rome
(this page in nice
sterile white and blue colour scheme)
There's some jolly nice restaurants
in Rome, but visit their toilets in the middle of your meal and
you could quite lose your appetite. Most public toilets in Rome
are pretty disgusting. We won't go into details...
More things you didn't know about
Rome, Number 16 - On Monday mornings they turn off the Trevi
Fountain for cleaning. Moral? (a) Don't expect to get a good
photo of it in action on a Monday morning. (b) Feel free to relieve
yourself in it on a Sunday night - you won't find any other public
bogs that will be cleaned the next morning, nor that are as pleasant
to look at, for miles around.
Indeed, public loos are pretty
far and few between in Rome, and those there are, are either
filthy or have some old hag sitting outside with a collection
tray, who you're expected to tip. However, RomeLife Website is
here trying to compile a list of cleanish public bogs in Rome
where you won't be expected to pay for the privilege of wading
through someone else's urine. The catch is that not all of them
are in restaurants.
For example, the best I've
found so far is a staff toilet in a hospital. The public toilet
in the same hospital is disgusting, but here are the directions
to the clean one reserved for the doctors:
At the north end of
Via San Gallicano in Trastevere, facing
north, either the last or last-but-one door on the left is the
back entrance to the hospital. Once inside, pass through the
entrance hall with the glass-topped collection chest in the middle
of the floor, and take the first turning on the left.
Look again to your left and you'll see the doctor's toilet door.
It's nice in there - cloth hand-towels ironed and folded over
the rails, clean floor, mirror etc. I have no qualms about using
it - shame on them for leaving the public toilet in such a filthy
condition!
Sometimes the first door inside is closed though, and you can't
get in without drawing attention to yourself. Obviously you must
be discreet and try to look as if you know where you're going,
or they'll throw you out.
We might also add at this
point that although Italian men are probably the most snappily
dressed and well-groomed on the planet, I have never seen an
Italian wash his hands after visiting the toilet. Perhaps then
it is wiser to quickly adapt the local custom of kissing when
you meet someone, rather than shaking hands. It's interesting
to note that the above-mentioned ironed and folded hand-towels
in the doctor's toilet did not appear used. Either it was early
in the morning, or...
That's all we have for now, apart from McDonalds of course,
which now has about twenty restaurants around town. McDonalds
bogs are generally pretty clean, and they're unlikely to throw
you out, but here again, be discreet, and at least try to make
it look as if you're a paying customer.
One of
those automatic "push'n'go" cubicles like they put
up in Leicester Square in the 80's has been sighted at the side
of the Ostiense, an urban dual-carriageway near the Basilica
San Paulo, so good luck crossing the road to get to it...
One
of our Canadian correspondents reports that 'Taverna Parione'
is a heck of a good restaurant on Via di Parione 38-39, (behind
the church in Piazza Navona), and perhaps more importantly as
far as we at RomeLife are concerned, has decently clean toilets.
It's closed on Mondays though, but then again, so is most of
Rome...
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