Pat_in_Chicago

I had the great pleasure of visiting the renovated L'Orangerie museum in Paris earlier this week. Question for those of you who have also visited the museum: Am I nuts or is there only 1 bathroom available?

The only bathroom I found was on the lower level and there were 3 stalls, with doors, and 3 urinals. Another woman and I walked in at the same time and both quickly left the room when we saw a couple of men busy at the urinals. I waited as long as I could before I had to brave the co-ed bathroom again and thankfully this time it was empty.

I'm not understanding why a newly renovated building would only have one bathroom. Why would men and women be expected to share the same facilities? Or is this arrangement more common than I've noticed?

They otherwise did a great job on the museum, by the way. I visited at about 3 p.m. and walked right in. Not very crowded at all.

Pat.

Tuni01

We recently visited this museum too and there was a large bathroom on the left open. It looked like the men's room on the right was closed so everyone used the same one. there were 6 or so closed stalls. Maybe the women's room was closed when you were there and everyone used the men's.

SharonG

I was there last March and used the bathroom but I don't remember anything unusual about it such as men in the ladies' room.

Travelnut

It isn't that uncommon in at least some countries... the BHV dept store in Paris has a WC where both sexes can utilize the same room.

By the way, the very first time I encountered a 'unisex' restroom was at a gas station in Canada, 1971.

bailey6325

Pat - I just visited L'Orangerie in the past month and there were separate men's and ladies' restrooms. There definitely weren't urinals in the ladies room and no men were in there!!

Apres_Londee

I seem to remember encountering a co-ed, multi-stall washroom in Florence at a museum, but I can't remember which one. The door clearly indicated it was co-ed, though.

There was a man in there spending an inordinate amount of time combing and styling his hair. I hated having to share mirror space with him, and fixing my own hair and make-up with him there. Much the same way I hate it when there are straight men present in the lingerie section of a department store, or in a cosmetics shop like Sephora. We women need privacy, otherwise our beauty secrets won't be so secret anymore.

MKE

I needed to use the bathroom while visiting the Uffizi Museum in Florence and as I walked down a few steps to the bathrooms on the third floor, I noticed quite a few Japanese girls in the doorway to the ladies room and was surprised to find quite a few more inside the men's room. Not being familiar with Japanese customs, I assumed that sharing bathrooms was an accepted Japanese cultural thing. Are we Americans the only ones who don't feel comfortable doing that?

Apres_Londee

The line up for the women's washroom at the Uffizi is particularly brutal. For such a major museum, it offers a pitifully inadequate amount of women's toilets. Men pop in and out of their washroom, and then spend ages waiting for their wives. I can't count the number of men who stuck their heads around the corner looking their wife or girlfriend, mumbling something to the effect of "...what the heck is taking you so long?... Sweet mother of god!!! I'm going to go get a snack. Back later," in 20 different languages.

I suspect the Japanese teenagers were simply desperate to pee.

MademoiselleFifi

The restrooms on at least 2 floors of the Galeries Lafayette were coed (unless I and many other customers all misread the signs). No open urinals though-- all enclosed stalls.

speckles

We went to a co-ed toilet in Paris in 2006, just around the corner from Sacre Couer. Not only was it co-ed, it also had an office for the janiters in it. An African couple were stationed there and had African music playing. They kept the toilets very clean. It was the most atmospheric toilets I have ever been in.

While on the subject of unusual toliets.. there is a pub in Adelaide, South Australia called The Tapp Inn which has a set of toilets (not co-ed) where the cubicle doors are made of clear glass. Only on locking the doors do they become opaque. As soon as the door is unlocked, the glass becomes clear again. My friend made me check that the door had become opaque before she would use the loo, but I must admit I wasn't game to use them.

Christina

There were/are co-ed bathrooms in Galeries Lafayette, which I am not crazy about just because I don't like using restrooms in public places with strangers of the opposite sex. It just makes me uncomfortable because you don't know who these guys are, and those bathrooms were down a long, dark hallway, as I recall, away from a lot of people. Of course, many smaller museums have unisex bathrooms that are just meant to be occupied by one person at a time, so it makes no difference. I have been in some small museum ones that were unisex, and maybe had two toilet rooms with doors (I mean like a stall, but they were not open at all) and one big washroom, and I wasn't bothered by them, but the GL one was much larger and away from things, and a big dept store like that has a lot of traffic and visitors of all kinds (and no one would be that noticeable in the store). Also, that's a major dept store and there isn't any reason for that for economical reasons, whereas small museums may not have the space or need to have two large separate bathrooms.

The Orangerie has two bathrooms right next to each other, the men's to the right and the women's to the left (as you face them) on the lower floor. Pat doesn't say what the sign on the door said. I've never been in a French bathroom that wasn't marked if it was only for men or women, and it must be marked in some way to show it's a bathroom (they have those symbols for men and women, the stick figures and the female has more of a skirt. So maybe Pat and the other woman just walked into the men's room (it has happened to me by mistake) by not paying attention to the signage. If only one was open, I guess it was due to some problem.

Ackislander

It is extremely common in France and Italy to have public sanitary facilities shared by the same gender. I have certainly experienced it in museums, railway stations, and department stores.

The big difference from the US/UK is that stall doors come all the way to the floor, like a closet, giving full privacy. Washing areas may be common or may share a single space with some separation between men's and women's areas.

Some places, like the Rodin Museum, have separate stall (water closet) areas, but the backs of men using the urinals are fully visible to women waiting in line or washing their hands, as they are to the attendant. But the men's fronts aren't visible!

As a male, I found this somewhat disconcerting the first few times, but you get used to it, certainly a lot more easily than toilets a la turque or the toilets without seats that one often finds.

I do think that people spend a lot less time primping in shared facilities, possibly an advantage.

nini

We found a toilet facility similar to the one mentioned by Acksislander in Bruges. I think it was in the old hospital (Memling?) and there was no exterior door and men using the facilites were in plain view.

Pat_in_Chicago

The bathroom in L'Orangerie had a sign that indicated a woman's silouette next to a man's so it was clear that both sexes were meant to use the same bathroom. I bet that the women's room was closed for some reason and we were all forced to use the men's room temporarily.

Thanks for all the great feedback.

Pat.

StCirq

I once went on a 6-week European adventure with another couple, and it seemed like every time I needed to use the rest room, so did my friend's husband. We kept encountering coed bathrooms EVERYWHERE. By mid-way through the trip we were referring to ourselves as The Peabodys.