After living here for 7.5 years, I didn’t think that Italy could continue to surprise me like this. But it can. And not all lovely surprises.
Behold, the absolute dirtiest ugliest toilet seat on a train….ever.
And the answer to your question is yes. I really really had to go.
Sorry, ain’t even close. You needed to try one of the Milan-Venice or Milan-Bologna lines in the 90s, where that would have been one of the cleanest seats on the train.
Being male definitely makes using the train bathrooms much simpler, but if you haven’t come across a FFSS toilet, seat and all, encrusted to where you had to plug your nose…
Hehe, I believe you! Too bad you don’t have any photos to share :)
I’ve noticed in the pharmacies in the stations they have started selling those bags containing an absorbent substance you can pee into when you can’t use a toilet during a long journey. And now we know why.
The regional trains are the worst.
Sure, the regional trains are the worst… if you can even find a WC which is unlocked and not sealed over.
Yes, I have come across some bathrooms on the “regionale” trains which had a 1x2m full sized panel of that horrible grey bumpy formica simply screwed over the door (probably reducing maintanence and cleaning costs drastically, even though it means you need to go 2-3 carriages away from your seat to find a bathroom available to use).
Last month, I spent two weeks in Japan and the bathrooms on the train (as were all of the other pubic bathrooms- which were everywhere!) were absolutely impeccable. And there was paper! And soap! And paper towels! The minute I got back into Fiumicino, I muttered to myself, “That’s the end of that.” More so than trains, the number of apparently “nice” restaurants in Italy that do not have adequate facilities- no paper, etc, is really depressing.
Nah! nothing, I said NOTHING! in Italia will ever match the filth in the bathrooms at the Great Wall of China… could not take a foto.. but believe me… after seeing it, and paying to go… I held it all the way back to the hotel…. gratefully…
And in December no less?! Poor girl! That means the toilet seat was not only disgusting but also FREEZING! At least it had a bottom, though. I was on the Reggio-Florence train last March and it opened straight onto the track. That was a cold rush of air that I could have lived without. *shudder*