As a lover of Italy it pains me to admit that I have two criticisms of this beautiful country: their bathrooms and their treatment of single, female diners.
Anyone who has traveled in Italy will know about their propensity for placing the shower head right next to the toilet. But I don’t mean with a shower curtain or a screen between. No, that would confine the water to one relatively small and localised area near the drain. Far better instead, despite this showering person’s best efforts, to have the water spray all over the walls, floor, toilet and occasionally the bidet as well. My last shower experience had me sopping up water with every available towel in the place as water drifted inexorably off the tiled bathroom ledge and into the bedroom. Containment of water, like the containment of passion, is seemingly not an Italian speciality. For the record, I love that they’re passionate but I don’t love their bathrooms.
Then of course, there’s the single female diner thing.
Now I’m accustomed to traveling solo and surely it cannot in this day and age, be that much of a novelty in this part of the world? But some restaurants and cafes don’t quite meet the customer service standard I’d prefer.
For instance, just because I’m dining alone does not mean I should be given the worst table in the house…like in Roma where, a couple of blocks from Scalina Spagna (the Spanish Steps) I was seated next to the air conditioning vent. Now had it been winter, the rather warm breeze it created would have been lovely. However, in summer (somewhere in the mid-30s) it didn’t help to create the fabulous dining experience I’d been hoping for (if I’d been wearing make-up it would’ve melted and slid off my face onto my pizza).
A few days earlier, I was an early diner in a beautiful spot on the Ischia coast. Only one other table was occupied but I was ‘kindly’ shown to a single-chaired table where my close dinner companion was a bright yellow garden hose (located a mere inch from my left elbow).
When a noise emanated from my throat (something like an incredulous grunt) and this was accompanied with hand gestures that clearly indicated my discontent, the waiter simply moved the chair to the other side of the table. The view of the water was a little better but the hose was still ever-present.
Sigh.
However, despite their lack of comfort with single female diners and occasional flooding incidents in, it must be said, very clean bathrooms, I still love Italy very much
But I don’t want to dine with another garden hose anytime soon.