Sunday, 27 September 2009

Things you wish you hadn’t seen

Milan is a vibrant city, the powerhouse of Italy’s economy; it’s a modern Finance driven city. Perhaps not in the same league as London, Tokyo, New York and Frankfurt. But it’s up there in the next league with the Hong Kong’s, Brussels’ and Shanghai’s.

Which makes it all the more surprising in a city that combines the best of Northern European capitalism with Southern European style and elegance they have decided, in places, to take their queues from the very wrong area.

I would like to bring you attention, as every must do eventually, to the issue of toilets.

Milan, home of style, elegance, and the point where the hole in the floor starts, and in the case of one particularly unpleasant version in a visitor attraction which will remain nameless, last used by someone who was very ill, and didn’t know how to flush (or aim!)

Of course, they also go in the opposite direction.

My hotel room has, as one would expect, a bidet.

Now these are a contraption that I’ve never really been able to get my head around. But the hotel has added a whole extra level of complexity and bewilderment into the mix.

Next to the bidet, is a little, what can only be described as, soap dish. And resting on this soap dish is a small bottle of shampoo.

It’s not that it’s been misplaced, no there is one of those small bottles of shampoo on the vanity unit by the sink, it genuinely appears to be a bottle of shampoo available for use whilst you are making use of the bidet.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand the Milanese

Labels: , , , ,