I am told that it is difficult to find hotel rooms in Italy with private bathrooms that have showers.
How does that gibe with the experiences of others?
Some hotel offer a "hand shower". Is that just a hosed shower head connected to the spigot of a bath tub?
All hotels I have stayed at in Italy (all 21 of them) had either a shower or a bath tub with a shower head in it. A hand shower to my knowledge is a shower head that has a hose attached to it which you either leave in the holder and use or hold in your hand to use. Think of that commercial where the girl is holding that shower head in her hand while showering. I have stayed in hotels that RS reccomends and they all had this type of shower as do most European hotels and youth hostels that I have stayed in.
All will have shower facilities - far fewer will have a bath/shower. The 'hand held' is attached to the wall,so you can leave it that way, or remove the head/hose to give your feet, for instance a spray clean. It's just called a hand held shower hose to diferentiate from a permanent fixture.
As described above, all hotel rooms will have a shower head. Also as described, It's a long hose with a holder high up on the shower so that you don't have to hold it. What was more interesting to me is how small many of the showers are in some less expensive hotels. I showered in a few that are actually smaller than a phone booth. They were clean and quite functional but very small. Just try to bend over and wash your lower legs and feet. The only way you can do this is stick your butt out the open door while the shower is running. Still, travel is just so much fun that you work with what you get. No complaints.
We usually use the moderate to mid range hotel recommendations in RS guidebooks. I'd like to add a positive plug for the showers in Italy -- most of the ones I've used have a little shower enclosure built into an existing bathroom (thus the small size), but they all had hard surface enclosures and were clean. I much preferred them to the showers in France, most of which had a shower curtain. (Translated, this means I carried a bottle of anti-mildew shower spray for the curtains the whole time I was in France!) But in either case, I appreciate that European hotels are accommodating our American taste for showers!
The bathrooms are so tiny in the older hotels becasue they were built pre such modern day facilities. I stayed at at hotel in Florence years ago which had a shower cubicle so small I could not wash my hair - no room for extended arms; and one largish gentleman could not fit in at all! Best bed and pillow all the world tho'. But that is why I travel - for the differences, for the 'old', otherwise why leave home.
I've been away from states so long i can't remember anything other than a handheld shower...and it works quite well on its "extension" cord to reach all spots needing cleaning.
I stayed in 8 or so hotels all over Italy and every one had a shower (all mid-range hotels, not fancy). As prior posters mentioned, showers are of a wide variety and style. Several were just a curtain pulled around a drain in the middle of the bathroom. Bathtubs were rare to non-existent. The only one I saw was in Siena, and it was a "half" tub (you could sit in it but not stretch out).
The more fun observation was the wide range of Italian bath towels - some were like gigantic thin dish towels that dried you off fast and were dry again in a matter of hours (I loved them and can't find them anywhere in the states). Some were also postage stamp sized, a challenge even for a petite person like me.
My wife's least favorite accomodations in our world travels to date (including places with non-potable water) were in Italy. It may be that her standards are getting higher as we age.
She didn't like a hostel in Verona that had almost no water pressure in the communal bathrooms. You had to scoop water off the wall and splash it on yourself.
She also didn't like our hotel in Florence that had a shower head over the toilet with a pull around shower curtain. She was so obsessed with keeping it clean and dry that all our towels were soaking wet before I ever came close to showering.
If it matters a lot to you, pay close attention to how the hotel is described in the travel guides. If it says "Tiny bathroom", it will be really tiny. A normal European bathroom is tiny by our standards.
I find the showers in Italy amusing.Some are good size,some are very small and most are inbetween.But they all work.I guess if the shower was the most important part of my trip Id stay at the Holiday Inn.
That was true 20+ years ago but now everyone wants their own bathroom and shower, so unless you are staying in bargain basement hotels, you will have your own.
I suppose there are hotels without showers, but finding hotels with showers and private baths is not difficult. Having spent over 6 weeks in Italy over several vacations, I have never stayed at a place that didn't have both.
Thanks everyone for your comments. V-e-r-y helpful.
