It’s still kind of hard for me to wrap my arms around the fact that I’m actually giving European travel advice — just call me Rickie Steves! I waited for many years for my European shot and it has been everything I hoped it would be. Both of my kids went to Europe twice before I got my chance — and I don’t regret sending them — but I’ve been taking advantage of being an empty nester for the last few years. Viva England and France (to mix my languages)!

I just had to show you why one doesn’t want to throw one’s laundry on the floor when one is staying in a ritzy London flat. We managed to score this fabulous apartment at the Sloane Club (wait for it to load; it’s worth it) because the studio we actually booked was being renovated and we got the duplexed one bedroom (that’s an understatement) for the same price.

This was our closet, the home of our dirty laundry. And yes, that’s a trouser press in the right corner. Gosh darn it, I love England — all I need is Jeeves.

After having been to England three times and France once in the last three years, my advice is to pack some laundry equipment.

One of the things I hate when I’m going to stay more than one night in one place is throwing my dirty clothes on the closet floor (I’m pretty sure the person before me in that room still has cooties in the carpet) or crunching them into plastic bags. I now pack a pop-up laundry basket. Genius. It works for the dirty clothes and it works when we have to do some laundry outside the hotel room or in our rental apartment. It also works if we take a picnic blanket and stuff to the beach. The pop-up mechanism means that it folds flat in my suitcase and takes up practically no room or weight. Combined with two plastic pants hangers, two plastic shirt hangers (with the hooks for camisoles), and our trusty stretch clothesline and plastic clothespins, we are able to do laundry in our hotel rooms and also hang not-quite-dry laundry from the European washer/dryer combo.

Life was all good until I found THIS. I’m tempted to give my boring hamper to someone else, and buy this hamper for myself and every other girlie I know. Who doesn’t want a little black brocade in her closet, even while on vacation?

Image via victoriantradingco.com

P.S. I would have linked up Wikipedia for the Jeeves reference, but I support the blackout. Tell your Congresspeople that SOPA isn’t the way to suppress internet crime.

P.P.S. E-mail me if you want me to hook you up with my travel agent; she may be the only full-service agent left in the United States!

P.P.P.S.  It’s amazing what WordPress doesn’t know how to spell. I’m just sayin”…