My loyal readers know that I am interested in public toilets. Today in Cassis, a lovely coastal village south of Marseilles I discovered a public toilet that disinfected itself between every user. It was a bit confusing for those of us who didn’t understand the concept. Our initial encounter with one, we held the door open for each other between uses. Each of us came out and apologetically said, I couldn’t figure out how to flush the toilet. I was the last and sheepishly left without flushing the toilet after trying everything I could think of. There was simply no way to do it. On our second encounter when the door was allowed to close between one user and the next, we discovered that there was a period of time when the door was locked even though there was no one in there. There were sounds inside of water circulating and then the green light went on and you could enter.
It is a stainless steel chamber that makes you feel a bit claustrophobic on the inside. the toilet paper is above and behind the toilet. The sink and hand dryer are to the right of the toilet. Notice the floor and walls are shiny as they are wet from the cleaning process.
When you enter, the green light becomes yellow and says occupied. After you leave, the light again goes yellow and the door will not open while it goes through its cleaning process which includes flushing the toilet. Once the cleaning is done, the light becomes green and the next person can enter. The cleaning takes about 30-45 seconds. The only real problem is that you have to know to take your toilet paper before you sit down because once you are sitting, it is hard to reach above and behind you. I guess if the toilet paper were our in an exposed place as it usually is, it would get wet in the cleaning process. It was the highlight of the day for one of us (and surprisingly it was not me).
Cassis is about an hour and a half drive from St. Remy. It was raining as we drove down. We had a leisurely morning and arrived around noon when the rain was predicted to be over and it was lovely when we arrived.
This is our view as we ate lunch – wonderful seafood – shrimp, calamari, salmon and mussels with yummy bread.
Above where we were sitting was this old castle on the cliff.
The harbor was lined with restaurants and the next block were quiet streets.
We took a one hour boat tour of the “creeks” just north of Cassis. The first “creek” was a small, sheltered marina; the second was a protected swimming area accessed by hiking in surrounded by rocks; the third had a sandy beach but accessible only by hiking in.
The country side driving home was stunningly beautiful – hard to capture on the camera. Blue skies with puffy clouds and lush green all around. We took the freeways on this adventure and there were tolls on some roads. It seemed a bit random as to what segments were toll but it was pretty easy to figure out. We discovered that the French drivers tend to cut in as soon as they have passed you rather than waiting until they can see you in the rear view mirror as we were all taught. It took a bit to get used to.
Tomorrow is our last day for the 4 of us. Two are doing a cooking class and two of us are doing a biking tour with wine tasting. Mary leaves early Saturday morning. The rest of us will visit a old friend of mine in a village about 45 minutes west of here. She has a French mother and American father.She grew up in France; did medical school in Spain and urology residency in the US which is how we became friends. She worked in the US and retired to Provence. Lucky woman.
Tamara Unleashed 