Hi,
We are booked on these tours back to back for next May. Yay! Can someone who has been on these tours tell me at what point on each tour we can arrange to do laundry? I have spoken to the RS office and they tell me that there is an opportunity for laundry for both tours but didn’t say where or when. Thanks for your help.
My Sicily tour was back in 2016. As I remember it there was laundry service in Syracuse. Actually Ortigia. It was offered by the hotel we stayed at.
On BoS this year, it was in Ortigia as well, but at a nearby laundromat. But you should always ask the tour leader at the orientation meeting so that you can plan for it. This is a routine question for them.
Mary, I just sent you a PM.
Thanks everyone. That will help me plan our packing better if I know what days I can expect to get some laundry done.
Back to back tours? Jealous! Both of those are on my list!
Hi diveloonie,
Yes. Back to back so we will be in Italy for about a month. We are excited about the trip. We have done a lot of Italy on our own and some of the South Italy will be a repeat but that’s ok because it’s been 19 years since we were there.
There is an excellent wash, dry, fold laundry on Ortigia, a right turnoff Via Mille after you cross the bridge onto the island. Very fast too.
I did hand wash every 2 days (1st night in each town) on South of Italy tour this year. But for those who wanted laundry done, the hotel in Matera was the laundry stop.
Sicily-we did this tour this summer and as I recall laundry was very limited. We did not hit a drop off/pick up laundry until Taormina which is near the end of the tour. We depended on our guide for this information. Our hotel in Ortigia- there were some rooms that had washers and dryers (one room). The guide asked that those who get this room speak up so others could use it. They did not. That couple was very much not the like the folks we have me on may RS tours!
We did laundry in Palermo on our Siciily tour. There is a laundromat a very short distance from the hotel that RS uses. As Palermo is at the beginning of the Sicily tour, this would only work if you are doing Best of Sicily after Best of South Italy.
I was on the BSI tour in April--our hotel in Matera had laundry service.
You should do a follow up trip report! I want to do the same when I retire, now I don’t have quite enough time, so only one tour a year.
Hi rlm,
I will try to do a report. I usually start out well with my trip journaling but with long days touring I am usually a bit too pooped to keep up with it after a while. We just came back from Scandinavia and it has taken me a few weeks to get back to “normal”.
We did the best of sicily tour in June 2019 and had some laundry done at the hotel in Palermo.
Mary, we pack light (within reason!), so we often do some laundry in our rooms. We were on a Best of Sicily tour last month and were able to send laundry out through our hotel in Ortigia...the Domus Mariae. While I don’t send my favorite tops/sweaters, etc., they did a beautiful, careful job with my husband’s clothes and my pants. They went out in the morning and came back that evening. Have a wonderful time!
Just returned from the Sicily tour. We did in room underwear washing the first night at each hotel then on the 4th night of the tour we sent our laundry out from the hotel Badia Nuovo. They did an excellent job and everything was returned the next morning neatly folded, however it was a bit pricey. If you can afford the time and find a do it yourself laundromat, I'd go that route.
Another tour member and I did laundry at a self-service laundry near the train station in Trapini, about a 10 minute walk from the tour hotel. We started the wash and left coins with the owner who transferred our laundry to dryers. We went exploring and stopped for a caffe. The dryers were just finishing when we returned, so little sightseeing time was lost doing laundry.
