Swimming hats/caps in Italian swimming pools? Really?

[BeeInYourBonnet]

Our holiday info (eurocamp) for our campsite in northern italy says swimming caps need to be worn. Does anyone know if this is true?

DH has virtually no hair on his head (balding with 'no.2' shaved hair), but is hirsute of body! It seems bonkers for him to need to wear a swim cap when there is actually about 10 times more hair on his body than on his head .

I also don't fancy sunbathing by the pool weather a rubber hat!!!!

I don't know, but wouldn't you take the hat off to sunbathe?

Yes that's normal in Italy!

Bald, shaven headed men are the only lucky ones to avoid this joy on holiday in Italy in my experience, everyone else spends the whole time looking like a smurf.

I don't know either, but can't you get ones that are swimming costume material rather than rubber?

Take some with you and see what everyone else is doing when you get there?

No idea if it is true, but can well believe it. Speedos are compulsory in French (public) pools!

If you do need to get them, I can recommend this Zoggs one. I wear it swimming here and find it much more comfortable than the latex or silicone ones.

Surely you woudn't have to wear it sunbathing though??

They certainly were compulsory in my local swimming pool in Spain. And more importantly, so are flipflops! I never go to the local pool (in the UK) without them, I did a couple of times, caught athlete's foot!

Thanks.

Yes, I will have to take hat off for sunbathing I guess. I just have horrible memories of rubbery swimming caps in school, which used to pull half your hair off when you trued to remove it!!! Will try to find a better version!

So will DH need one too for his v short hair?

Look for a spandex one, much more comfortable.

We're off to an Italian campsite next month, and it's definitely compulsory to wear a hat on these sites. Bearing in mind I have 2 teenagers, I'm bloody glad there's a lake on the doorstep to swim in!!

Which campsite is it? have been to Norcenni Girasole and no swimming caps there.

True. Our hotel in Milan insisted it was the rule in Italy.

They fold us nice stretchy cotton type ones. DS has worn his for school swimming so not a waste. Much nicer than rubbery ones you get here.

We had to wear them in the pool at our hotel in Sirmione. There were pool attendants there and if anyone forgot (I did once) they were quick to remind you. The hats weren't rubber, but a stretchy material. As everyone wore them, even the men, you didn't feel silly.

We went to Italy the previous year and the year before that and weren't made to wear hats so I think this might be a recent thing.

Maybe it is just that camp site. I have been to Italy a few times but have never had to wear a swimming hat.

Yes, it's true. (I live here)

If there are attendants, you have to wear a hat. If you don't have one, they will give you one, but as pp's have said, they are material, not rubber (ie next to fecking useless for the job they are supposed to be doing!)

I thought tbh, it was only the UK that permits scaggy greasy hairs to lift themselves off heads willy-nilly and wrap themselves round your legs in pools. I remember a million years ago in Germany and Belgium on school exchanges having to wear them.

A quick google brings up a 73 page document from the Ministry of Health about swimming pool rules in Italy.

Any pool allowing anyone in not wearing a cap risks being closed on hygiene reasons. (it didn't take them 73 pages to say that, but that's the gist )

Thanks. So hats it is!!

I imagine I'd better get one for nearly bald DH too although he may need to wear full on gimp suit to keep hair well and truly covered

bunbaker we are off to Lake Garda too, in a fortnight. Funnily enough there were no 'swimming hat wearers' in the parks promotional literature!

sootica we last went to Italy 8 years ago ( and for the 4 years previous to that) and never had to wear swimming hats then.

Which one are you going to? It said that for Bella Italia, but when we got there that was just for the lap pool. The fun pools no one bothered.

Ooh, just seen this! Ds is off on a school trip to Lake Garda at the weekend. They're going to a water park at one point - will the hat rule apply there too? And do they also require Speedo trunks as opposed to board shorts, as in France?

I wish we had a swimming hat rule in this country tbh.

Hi Clam - I would definitely make sure your son takes speedo-type bathers - as far as I know, this rule is universal at public pools in France. Haven't the school given any advice?

But it's not France, it's Italy. And I did ask at the school meeting and no one seemed sure. However, they did a similar trip a couple of years back and no one could remember it as having been an issue.

Ds says he'd rather not swim than have to wear Speedos! Great.
So do I now have to factor in a shopping trip between now and Saturday, to buy something he'll probably refuse point blank to wear?

Sorry, Clam, didn't read your post properly. Doesn't the waterpark in question have a website with FAQs?

Good idea - I'll have a google...