Laundry

The larger cities have landromats and many of them double as internet cafes.

Hi Nancy,
We've done laundry in Italy in Rome and Vernazza. In Rome we used a "drop off" service and picked our laundry up the same day. In Vernazza we used a laundromat. We found both to be expensive compared to other countries. In Rick's Italy book he lists recommended laundromats under the "Helpful Hints" section for most cities.

We found the laundromats offer a "we do it service" and tell you the price for a certain size load. But be careful. In Sorrento, it was 8 euros for the load size we had (or so we thought). As it was broken up into 3 loads for different type clothes (we would have washed them all together), it cost 24 euros. Ouch!

We found "do it yourself" laundromats in Florence and La Spezia. My wife and I packed light and we used the laundries to catch up on clean clothes. It worked very well. If the laundromat is not staffed, you will have to remain there 1.5hrs to 2.0hrs. It seems safe but we weren't locals.

FYI Venice is not the place to look available but Pricey Trust me !!I Hauled my dirty laundry to Madrid. 1/3 the price. I live in a medium size German city ( 50,000 ) and have no idea where laundry mat is so often DYI not as convenient as Rick suggests !!

We got badly caught out in a hotel in paris (I know not Italy, but) - it cost us 76 Euros!!! What we tended to do after that little exercise was split up at the laundromat. One person would stay there while the others explored. Then they'd come back and one of them would stay behind and the next lot would go. Of course only works when there is more than just yourself. I liked to catch up on "paperwork" stuff when I was there or have a quiet read, or if there was internet - get on line and check my mail.

Laundromats are very common, especially in larger cities. Within five blocks of our hotel in Rome we spotted no less than five of them. Since European apartments are both small and many may lack laundry equipment, these are more common over there than here.

We did laundry in Sorrento that also had internet. Very clean and no problem.

We used the Onda Blu near Termini last year. Clean and directions in about a dozen different languages. We picked up some wonderful olives, thin bread sticks and some salami and chese from the nearby supermarket and had lunch (and got our email since it's also an internet point) flipped through our guidebooks and made plans for later in the day.