I experienced one of the greatest surprises of my life in the Rome airport on my first trip to Italy. After a 12-hour overnight flight, I immediately sought out the nearest restroom after landing. Upon completing my business, I turned and simply stared at the toilet -- there was no flushing lever.
I looked on the left side. I looked on the right side. I searched for an automatic sensor, a pull-down string, a button, anything! After nearly panicking and consideration to bolt from the scene, I saw a white panel that was split in two sections creating a smaller button and a larger button above the commode affixed to the wall. With much trepidation, I pressed the larger side and, lo and behold, the toilet flushed!
I have since learned that the wall-mounted panels are the more modern versions of toilet flushing in Italy. And, for the longest time, I only pressed the larger button because I simply didn't want to know what happened when the smaller button was pressed. In fact, the smaller button also flushes. The smaller button is more commonly used, while the larger button is used for larger "jobs".
On that first tour of Italy, I quickly discovered that no two toilets are alike, making flushing a real brain teaser on every restroom visit. Here are a few options that I've seen:
- Plastic panel with a one or two-button flush option
- Metal or plastic push button on the top of the tank
- Step-on button on the floor near or behind the toilet
- Round push button positioned at waist level on the wall
- Pull up metal tab on the top of the tank
- Pull down metal tab on the bottom of the overhead tank
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