Pay Toilets

One of the more disturbing and annoying features of German Culture is when you have to go to the bathroom for there are no public restrooms.

Perhaps that is stretching the truth a bit. Certainly it’s not a problem when wandering the hallowed halls of the airport or onboard a train, but the second you need to pee while wandering Berlin or taking the autobahn, one must be prepared to pay.

It can range from the benign 20 cents to the outrageous 50 cents-and while you can sometimes get away without paying, or paying on your way out, there are places where this isn’t feasible. I watched a woman in Potsdam collect 50 cents before each person entered her toilet, and she was aggressive about it. If you entered during the thirty seconds she had stepped away to do something else, she came running to block you before you could get inside.

The point behind the charge is that, theoretically, that the toilets will be kept clean by the professional manning the facility. I did, once, have a totally filthy toilet in Stuttgart, where I refused to pay and got away with it.

However, it is nice to have a really clean bathroom in convenient locations-while in Berlin I had a pressing urge to pee, and the bathroom was right where I needed it. However, it was a bit disconcerting to have a 6’6″ tall man come at me asking me if I only needed to “PP?” Some how I’d missed the PP sign in that facility, although, as you can see- not all are unobvious.

(image file accidently deleted.)