This is sort of a funny thing to write about on my travel, but I was so struck by laundry on our travels in Europe. The picture above is the laundry room at the apartment in Provence.
Sheets were hung to dry in the same garden we had tea in Carcassonne.
If the laundry isn't entertaining enough, wind will help our laundry dry quicker.
I was so amazed that for sure out of the 6 places we stayed at least 4 of them hung their sheets to dry. Beside saving on electricity, sheets smell divine when hung to dry.
I am not sure if they were doing it for the green effect, saving money, or that is just the way it is done. Since I have been trying to hang my sheets this year to save one load on the dryer, this really caught my heart to see sheets blowing in the breeze or in a basement laundry room.
Even the 45 room hotel in Barcelona had a laundry room with the sheets hanging to dry. Now if that isn't dedication? I sat one day watching the bedding be sent through a window into a cart and then wheeled to the basement. When I peeked there were sheets hanging everywhere.
Traveling even in the cities there was often a few pieces of laundry hanging outside a small balcony or just out the window.
I think we have come to expect to use our home dryers too often, we feel entitled. This is my little band wagon for helping to conserve and help with the green effect. If we hung just one load of laundry a week either outside, a small line set up in our basement or garage, or a laundry rack, we could do a little to contribute and have the reward of divine smelling sheets.
Ah, my friend, you have touched a chord in my heart! Laundry on the line and the smell of fresh laundry that has been hanging outside! While we didn't have a windmill when I was a child I always saw - and then later helped - my mother hang the laundry no matter what the weather. Most of my grade school years where spent in Bend, in the Central Oregon snow! Mom faithfully, every week, hung the sheets on the line. In the freezing temps of winter or the sunny, warm days of summer. She tells me they dried much faster when they froze! I don't know that firsthand - will take her word for it.
ReplyDelete~Adrienne~
Much love and many blessings
ReplyDeleteI love everything you share.......
Kisses
Love Jeanne♥
Wonderful idea! Growing up we always had fresh linens dried outside in the sun and breeze.
ReplyDeleteBrenda
Have I ever told you how much I love laundry? I really, really do. And everything to go with it. I'd love to see this for myself.
ReplyDeleteI was fascinated by the same thing in Venice, cloths on lines between buildings over streets.
ReplyDeleteLooked neat, and yes, every little bit would help.
Marilyn, do you think they hang the sheets to dry because they are linen? When reading about the care of real French linens they always say not to put them in a dryer.
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