Travel - A Tale of Dirty Laundry

“Is there a laundromat here in the village?” I asked Patrick, the host of the B&B where I was staying.

“Well, no,” he said rather pointedly in his almost perfect English, but with a glimmer in his eye. ”But there is the lavoir up on the Place de la Tour. It’s not what you would call a laundromat, but you can wash your clothes there. You’ll usually see the ladies of the town washing their mats and carpets - the big stuff - up there.”

“How cute,” I thought, searching out my little village map and setting off with washing on my mind. Sospel is a small town in the French Alpes-Maritime, near the border with Italy. It dates back to the 11th century, when it emerged as a supply town for the Ligurians, Celts and Romans tramping the early roads through these lower alps.

With the Merlanson and Bevera Rivers meeting on its doorstep, and plenty of freshwater springs in the surrounding hills, water has played a significant part in Sospel’s history. This helps to explain why there are at least five beautiful old drinking fountains and two lavoir, or public washing areas, dotted through its ancient streets and squares. All are still in daily use, unchanged from the old days and as functional as ever.

Sospel is a small town by European standards, with just 3500 people. So you would think the Place de la Tour, and its lavoir, would be easy to find. But that wasn’t quite how it worked, as I struggled to find the little alleyway that would take me up the hill as Patrick had explained.

Sospel’s ‘modern-day’ look dates back to the old walled town built in the late 13th century, although little remains of those original buildings. What does remain is the layout of narrow alleyways and streets that were obviously built pre-car, pre-cart and possibly even pre-donkey. Even now, all they can accommodate are skinny little scooters, basket-bearing bicycles and the odd puny Peugeot. However, many are too steep even for those and it’s often foot traffic only.

Finally, having flitted through Place St Michel with its 17th century cathedral, twin churches of the Penitents and the old remains of the convent of the Carmelite nuns, I found the stairs that would take me where I was heading. On the way I stumbled upon the remains of the 13th century tower of the Counts of Savoy, who ruled over the town from 1258. Once again, impossibly old, this surprisingly intact square-cornered structure marks the inside angle of a very acute corner on the curving road up to the Place de la Tour – a sturdy corner of the old city walls and bouncing board for badly parked Citroens. Around the other side someone has planted the inside of the tower with a flourishing back garden of fruit trees and vines.

The Place de la Tour, and its lavoir, sit just over the crest of the hill. Built relatively recently for Sospel, in 1888, this set of three small rectangular pools sit on an open-sided covered terrace with a distant view of the mountains surrounding the town. “Great spot for a laundry,” I thought as I unwrapped my bundle of sad washing.

The third pool, furthest from the fountain, was obviously where the washing was done; its cloudiness bearing evidence of other people’s soap powder. So in go the clothes. Luckily its summer and I’m very warm, especially after the climb up from Place St Michel, because this water has definitely come from an alpine source not so long ago - imagine it in winter. Add some suds and the washing gets serious. Except it would be nice to have a few of the older local ladies here to chat with as I scrub, caress and wring my travel-weary clothes. After the initial wash, it’s into the second pool for a rinse before a final rinse in the crystalline water of the very first pool, straight from the constantly running tap.

It’s hard to imagine this kind of thing still up and running in New Zealand – say, a 19th century communal copper where the women who emigrated with the New Zealand Company would have boiled their cottons and family linens. They couldn’t wait to get those primitive colonial amenities behind them so they could disappear into their own private laundries tacked on the back of new wooden cottages. The only place you’d find one now is probably a replica in a provincial museum.

But after a very pleasant quarter hour scrubbing my clothes back to life while admiring the old stone houses and cobbled streets around me, I’ve finished. Nobody has passed by except two jostling dogs and a few low-flying birds, adding to the illusion that I could have dropped straight into a scene from the early 19th century. Until I look up and see the con trails of 21st century Europe’s busy airways criss-crossing overhead and remember I am just a visitor to this beautiful, very authentic piece of French village life.