We will be traveling in Nice and Provence in mid September staying 3 days in Juan les Pins, one week in Aix-en-Provence and another week in Avignon as our respective bases. We are planning to visit many small towns in Provence. We are 3 people in our mid to late 60s and perhaps have a higher interest in public bathrooms than others do as a result of our age-we are very fit otherwise! I have not seen the topic of public bathrooms addressed in any posts and wonder if anyone has good advice about whether such bathrooms exist and, if yes, how to find them especially in the small towns. Do we have to go to a café and buy something to use their facilities? Do the tourist offices have them?

I know that this is not a glamorous topic but I would appreciate any information that folks might have.

Usually IME with smaller towns you go to a cafe and buy a coffee - be sure to buy something - towns used to have public facilities but these were so so crude - the old Vespasienne toilet - a hole in the floor and really dirty IME - think most of these public loos have been closed or you would not want to use them. Tourist offices do not have public toilets - train stations do - pay toilets if there is a train station in town.

Larger towns have McDonalds that you often can access without buying anything but more and more you need to get a key from the desk to use them.

There usually is a public bathroom near the <i>mairie</i>, but as mentioned by PalenQ, they could be the squatting type which can be problematic at our age. Sometimes they are dirty, sometimes they are well maintained. Their level of crudeness is a matter of opinion, and I have seen some newly installed ones.

We found Rick Steves' guidebook walkkng tour maps helpful as they mark toilet locations. Of course, he doesn't cover all towns, but many smaller ones are usually included.

I've spent quite a lot of time traveling in the south of France with my elderly mother, so share your concern about public facilities. Your best bet is to stop at a cafe, buy "un cafe" and use their toilets. The cafe will be a small cup - like an espresso, so no worries about having to make another stop too soon. Be aware that in some cafes and restaurants the toilets will be up or down a flight of stairs. In one restaurant where we had lunch that was the case, which made them inaccessible for my mom, so we asked if there was a place nearby where the toilets were more accessible and were directed to the local assisted living home. Worked out well. I really don't think you'll have a lot of problems with this.

I usually get by using cafes/restaurants or the occasional museum or tourist site. I usually see something each day like that.

YOu don't have to buy coffee, you can buy anything, like a Perrier if you want a drink, or something you might actually want, like a citron presse in the afternoon.

I think if you don't intend to go to any tourist sites that have them (like a museum, abbaye, etc., and some of those can be unpredictable), you will have to be prepared to buy something. Surely you will be eating lunch or something somewhere.

They vary as noted and as you can see here.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=public...w=1280&bih=687

I have a great memory of my wife making use of one of the more modern automated ones where you put money in first to get the door open. After use, you push a button to open the door and when you leave, the door closes and the toilet is automatically washed/sanitized ready for the next user.

Unfortunately, my wife missed seeing the button to unlock the door and was pulling on the handle trying to get it open, to no avail. Next came her shouting to me to get her out of there. All this steps away from the front of Reims Cathedral. I'm sure they could hear her 2 blocks away at least.

There is no way to get that door open from outside by the way unless you have the caretaker's key. You can't put money in to open it since it doesn't reset until the previous person leaves obviously. So I had to first threaten to leave her there permanently in order to get her to stop yelling and then had to talk her through looking for the means to open the door from the inside.

So my advice, be sure you know how to get out before you look yourself in. ;-)

Southern France still has lots of public WC places which are of questionable desirability but of incontestable usefulness during emergencies.

Improviser reminds me of the time in Paris when I had finished using the auto-loo and someone thought she was both clever and frugal and entered before the door locked behind me. I couldn't stop her. She was present during the wash cycle! She was very clean afterwards, I suspect.

and if the squat thrust type of Turkish Toilet (a k a Vespasienne, named so after the Roman emperor who introduced them to France I believe, heed the oft graffiti on the wall"

"Pull the chain before you rise and get a wet surprise!"

I use cafes all the time & don't purchase anything - I just walk in like I know what I'm doing.

Stu Dudley

You may also see filthy dirty Turkish squat toilets in cafes! Indeed in one Latin Quarter restaurant recently I incredibly encountered one!

PalenQ,

You might want to check the definition of <i>vespasienne</i> here: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespasienne

The online dictionaries agree with the definition given in Wikipedia without giving the history of public urinals in France and ancient Rome.

The fact that some of them flush a little too high does not make them filthy, but the user must make sure that his feet are beyond the flush basin (my father-in-law was heard dancing in a café because the toilet door opened inward and he got stuck with the flushing water--as reported by my wife many years later).

I usually stopped at a café for a pastis to use the toilet but carry baby wipes when on the road and can't wait.
most gas stations have the dreaded hole.

Two thoughts.

One, what do you do at home? Public toilets are no more common there than when travelling.

Two, I suppose we should also warn against the semi-common unisex toilets in France. By that I don't mean, one toilet such as the automated ones on the stree where obviously they are unisex but it isn't a problem since only one person can use it at a time.

I'm referring to a toilet in a restaurant where you walk in and there are cubicles as well as urinals and both sexes share. A bit disconcerting for some to walk in see a man standing at a urinal and a woman standing at a sink washing her hands.

Your 'clever and frugal' story brings a very clear mental picture Caliban.

How do you know what is common where the OP lives?

The above advice to figure out how to get out of the automated toilets before shutting the door is very good. While they are cleaner (and wetter) than many public restrooms, there is something a little nerve-wracking about using them. I can easily see how one could get flustered.

I also suggest taking a travel pack of tissues - we encountered a number of restrooms with no tissue.

Some cafes have modern flushable toilets with no seat. It wouldn't be hygienique! Women, I am told, sort of hover with their knees bent. This may be why skirts seem more common in France than in the US.

The urinals next to the wash basins cease to be an issue after the second or third time. You can't actually see anything except backs. Unisex stalls with doors down to the floor like a closet are exceedingly common in France and Italy. Wash basins are in a common area.

Public libraries and community centers in larger towns may be as useful as they are in the US and UK.

The otherwise clean and nice toilets at the Auchan supermarkets often don't have seats.

I highly recommend the W.C. packs carried by travel suppliers like Magellan's: seat covers, toilet paper, and cleansing towelettes.

One of Michael Bond's Monsieur Pamplemousse books (he also writes of Paddington Bear) has an hysterical scene in which someone gets trapped in an automated toilet in a park one night.

For anyone driving through Lyon, at one point as you go south along the river there is an automated toilet on the corner on the right. It's a life-saver.

The otherwise clean and nice toilets at the Auchan supermarkets often don't have seats>

I have camped all around France and very few campground toilets have seats either - indeed a funny site to me is seeing campers lugging a toilet seat in hand when heading to the loo!