Worldwide Travel

[#1]

I tend to avoid chain hotels whenever I travel overseas. I don’t need to sleep in luxury or in an American-style hotel. I prefer to immerse myself in the local culture by staying at a locally owned hotel. As a result, I’ve slept in some very interesting hotels. But even more interesting than the hotels themselves were the bathrooms—some miniscule, some gargantuan, some fairly “normal” and some totally wacky.

On my first trip to Florence, I stayed at an inexpensive hotel that was a palace several centuries earlier. Even though the high ceilings, narrow halls and twisted staircases gave the hotel a great atmosphere, my room was disappointingly ordinary. But the bathroom wasn’t! It was a gigantic 15’ x 15’ room with a ceiling that was at least 20-feet high. This vast space only had a toilet on one wall and a sink on the opposite one. In the middle of the room, there was a drain in the floor and a showerhead suspended from the ceiling with a pull chain attached. When I pulled the chain, a feeble stream of water sprayed the entire room, soaking the walls, the sink and toilet, the towels and even my clothes hanging on the back of the door!

In the Cotswold area in England, I stayed at a charming hotel that seemed to be directly out of an Agatha Christie novel. The hotel dated from the 16th century and our room was cozy and quaint, although it had a bit of a downhill slant. Since hotels in the 16th century didn’t have bathrooms, a bathroom was added at some point—to the outside of the building. From our room, we walked down three steps to our bathroom that bumped out from the outer wall of the hotel. A small bathroom window allowed us to look directly into our hotel room from the outside or down to the alley we were suspended over.

In Normandy, we found our bathroom had a narrow slot for an archer to shoot arrows through—in case the hotel was attacked. One morning in Switzerland, I opened the curtains on our bathroom window to discover a curious cow peeking in. And in Istanbul, our rather conventional hotel room had a bathroom with a stunning view overlooking the Bosporus.

Perhaps there’s a direct relationship in France between the amount I’m willing to pay for a hotel room and the size of the bathroom, because in Paris, an inexpensive hotel room generally equates to a very small bathroom. One Paris bathroom even made cruise ships’ bathrooms look spacious. The only place for my knees while sitting on the toilet was under the sink. And there wasn’t a tub or a shower stall, but a showerhead in the ceiling that cleansed both the entire bathroom and me.

Traveling in the winter produced a couple of interesting hotel bathrooms too. We stayed in a small hotel in London where my husband burned all the hair off his forearms lighting the gas for the water heater and at a heavenly ski lodge in Bavaria that had heated toilet seats and towels.

Have you experienced any interesting bathrooms on your travels?

[#2]

Wow...this topic is not something most travelers think of asking about prior to their journey.  I have not encountered quite the variety of bathrooms you have in your travels.  I have heard of not having a private bathroom as we are accustomed to in the States, but the open shower is quite different.  I admire your spirit of adventure in not staying in the typical chain hotel and instead opting for the native accommadations. 

[#3]

I think we all have our limits as to what we will tolerate while traveling. The cleanliness of a hotel room and bathroom is much more important to me than its size or opulence. Now, I love a luxurious hotel room too, but while traveling in Europe the destination is much more important to me than the hotel. I spend so little time in the hotel room that all I require is a clean room and a comfy bed.