Finding toilets - Venice San Marco
How to find an accessible toilet near the Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square) in Venice
Finding a public toilet in Venice can be challenging for anyone. With this guide, you can locate all the public toilets and those with wheelchair access.
The benefits of visiting Venice outweigh the drawbacks, but do be prepared for some challenges if you use a wheelchair. This article is about that most necessary of conveniences, the public toilets and in particular the public washrooms with wheelchair access near the Piazza San Marco.
The Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square) has been called "the drawing room of Europe". If there is one place where EVERY tourist in Venice goes, this is it. At the bottom of this article you will find a link for more information about Venice generally, from the S. Europe travel topic in Suite101.com.
The good news about the Piazza San Marco is that it is flat, open and very easy to move about in. The less good news is that public toilets can be hard to find.
If you buy a Venice Card, access to the public toilets is included - otherwise you have to pay one (1) Euro to use them. Paying for toilets is not unusual in Europe. Sometimes you have to purchase toilet paper from an attendant on the way in, sometimes there's a coin operated door, sometimes there's just a strict looking person with an open basket for coins. It always helps to have coins and toilet paper in your pocket.
The Venice Card website lists the locations of the public toilets. There is a tiny map on the website, and a list of addresses.
The web page for Accessible Venice is a little more helpful because it gives the addresses for toilets with "facilities for the disabled". But only addresses, no map!
This problem can be solved by using the map available on the website of the City of VeniceThe map is searchable by address. In the search box at the left, you can put in the address of the toilet near Piazza San Marco, for example - Calle Ascension for "Address", and 1264 for "Street Number", and the map will show you exactly where the toilets are.
Or, you can put Venezia (Italian name for Venice) in the box "Where" in the "Points of Interest" section, and then in "tipology" (type) select "public toilets" from the drop-down menu. There are options on the right hand side of the map for selecting all of the public toilets or just some of them.
This city map shows all the public toilets in Venice, but it is the list from Accessible Venice which specifically identifies the accessible ones.
Want to read more about Venice?
- Try Venice: Italy's City on Water to get your feet wet and
- Venice is Accessible, Affordable for information on the Venice Card. The Venice Card saves money and also helps avoid language problems at the major attractions.
Let's talk about finding toilets in Venice.
All on-line references were current at the time this article was originally published on Suite101.com.
