La Dolce Vita Means Doing Laundry Too

Traveling to Italy isn’t all about sightseeing, exploring wineries, and eating delicious food. Between pursuing the perfect pasta dish and gazing at the incredible works of Michelangelo, reality eventually calls. And even in the land of la dolce vita, someone still has to do the laundry.

When your trip is longer than a week or ten days, laundry becomes part of the agenda, and time must be allotted for this mundane, yet necessary, task.

During my solo trips to Italy, I was on a budget, and so I did small amounts of laundry in the sink in my hotel room and hung the items on a clothesline strung about the bathroom and hotel room. This process took up quite a bit of time, not to mention that the room looked like a disaster zone.

The other budget option consisted of finding a self-service laundromat with coin-operated machines and doing several loads at a time. This involved packing the dirty clothes in bags and loading them into the luggage as the most efficient way to transport them to the launderette. Of course, then I would have to wait for the laundry to get finished, fold it, and then pack it up in suitcases before taking it back to the hotel room.

After quite a few solo Italy vacations doing laundry on my own, eventually I began to travel with Richard. Once he saw firsthand the chaotic laundry clotheslines in the room, he encouraged me to let the hotel  take care of everything and return the laundered clothing back to our room. Since we were splitting the cost, I acquiesced and decided  to splurge. Despite the exorbitant cost, it was truly a luxury, although not one I have been willing to do very often.

So, on my most recent trip last fall with Richard, we planned to do laundry once we arrived in Taormina. This was a two-and-a-half-week trip, and we had already been to Barcelona and Palermo, so we needed to get our laundry done.

Years ago, we we stayed at Hotel Victoria on Corso Umberto, and the front desk managers had told us about a nearby laundromat.

It was up a staircase behind the hotel, and for about €20, they did our laundry and delivered it back to the hotel.

What a deal that was! Our plan was to follow the same course since we were staying at the same hotel.

When we checked in at Hotel Victoria, we were happy to see the same managers, but we learned that the laundromat had unfortunately closed permanently. Although we were disappointed, luckily there were two other laundromats, only they were further away. One thing I have learned is that flexibility is required when traveling in Italy, and this was definitely one of those situations.

After looking at Google Maps, we opted for the closest laundromat which was approximately a ten-minute walk away. The hotel manager kindly phoned Sharon Lavanderia, and informed us that they were open, and that we could drop off our laundry and they would do it for us. This was music to our ears, and once we got to our room, we quickly unpacked. Our dirty laundry was already separated and bagged, so we loaded them into two rolling suitcases and headed out onto the cobblestone streets In reality, it took about fifteen minutes due to a detour at the community garden, where one of the entrances was barricaded by construction equipment. Fortunately, we made it in time.

When we arrived, it appeared that this laundromat did a lot of commercial laundry, and a male employee inquired who sent us. He then called the hotel to  verify that we were sent by them. This led me to believe that they do not take walk-ins. He told me the laundry would be ready for pick-up two days later, first thing in the morning. That worked out perfectly since the next morning we had scheduled an all-day excursion and wouldn’t return until after closing.

The following morning I left early and went to the laundry by myself. It was a pleasure to meet Giusy Lo Turco, who shared that she and her family have managed and operated this family-owned business for twenty years.

She had the laundry all bagged up, and it was easy for me to just put it inside the suitcases and roll them back to our hotel. Three large bags of laundry for only €50 was certainly a bargain.

So, whatever your budget, laundry is definitely something to consider when making travel plans for Italy.

 

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear them, so please consider leaving a comment.

 

Grazie and Ciao.

You can read more about my travels in Sicily in My Love Affair with Sicily, available on Amazon in paperback, kindle and audiobook.