SKIP TO THE LOO

I just got back from five weeks of travel in England, Scotland, and Wales.  I'll have plenty to write about for awhile, but let's start with the restrooms.

Between the tours we took, and the time on our own in London, I believe I visited most of the public restrooms in Great Britain.

First, never call them "restrooms".  If you do, people may do their best to accommodate you by referring you to a place that lets rooms with a bed -- to rest upon.  What we euphemistically call "restrooms", the Brits call out in plain language, "toilets".   It is perfectly polite to inquire, "Where's the toilet?"  Signs everywhere show the way to the Gents and Ladies TOILET.  If you want to be fancy, you can say lavatory, which has been charmingly shortened to "loo".  Our Scotland tour guide would assure us that at several points throughout any given day we'd have ample opportunity on our stops to "Skip to the Loo".

In the US it is sort of a crap shoot (hahahahaha) as to the cleanliness of any given facility.  Not so in Britain, at least in the places I visited which were mostly touristy spots, but still.  They could easily have become degenerate given the high volume traffic they accommodate, but almost without exception they were sparkling clean and fresh-smelling.  The glaring exceptions were one Starbucks and one McDonald's where Hub and I used the facilities in a pinch.  I don't know what that says, or maybe I do.  These are American establishments.  We need to clean up our act!

The British loos were well-maintained, well lit, clean, and sanitary.  There were none of those fastidious paper toilet seat covers, but I never felt I shouldn't put bum skin to seat anyway.  And if I did (hello Starbucks) I merely did the squat and hover thing women have learned to do, and was grateful for my exercise routine that keeps my thighs muscular and my balance steady.

What I loved most about the stalls was how private they were.  None of those open at the top and bottom doors that barely offer a private moment; these were like little rooms!  Full doors that when closed provided a cozy toilet room with no one peaking under or potentially over.  How did you know if they were occupied?  When you closed the always working, never broken latch, the outside showed a red indicator; available showed green.  (Like we see on those gross port-a-potties here.)

Hand washing was a bit of risk, however.  I never learned why but the hot water tap is turned up to boil all over Britain.  Signs warning of VERY HOT WATER were to be taken seriously.  So if you go, be sure to be cautious and get some cold water mixed in, which can be a bit of a chore given that there is often a two faucet set up -- one for scalding hot and one for icy cold.  Many, thankfully, were a one faucet (automatic sensor) set up that provided water that didn't take your skin off.  Another thing that keeps the loos cleaner is that I almost never saw a paper towel dispenser anywhere.  All hand drying is done with those blow drier things on the walls.  I generally get impatient with those and end up wiping my wet hands on my pants, but they did cut down on waste and clutter.

The photo I'm including is from probably the best public toilet, but not by much.  Most were great.  This one is from the Tower of London just outside the Royal Crown Jewels exhibit, so they have a high standard to meet.  You will note that this one has a bit less than the fully enclosed toilet room I described above, but still pretty private and very stylish.

I had hoped to get shots of more loos, but most of the time they were jammed with other tourists, and whipping out a camera would have just seemed creepy.

At least, that's the view from here....©