There’s always a good reason to plan a trip to Paris. The City of Light offers some of the world’s best museums, top-rated restaurants, and, apparently, sparkling water on demand.
The city currently has eight fontaine pétillante, as locals call the fountains dispensing sparkling water, which they began installing in 2010, but Paris’s City Hall recently expanded the project so that each one of the 20 arrondissements will eventually have at least one, CityLab reports.
“People often told me that they were ready to drink tap water if it was carbonated,” Anne le Strat, head of the Paris water board, told 20 Minutes magazine in 2010. “Now they they’ve got no excuse not to.”
One of the new sparkling water fountains was recently installed near Canal Saint Martin at Square Eugene Varlin, and eight more are supposed to be installed by next December, per CityLab.
The sparkling water fountains essentially act like regular water fountains, drawing their water from the city’s main water line, but they also have a CO2 carbonator inside that adds bubbles when the water is 44 degrees Fahrenheit, apparently so the flavor stays fresh, according to Condé Nast Traveler.
Even though the one sparkling water fountain a CityLab writer could find in Paris was “tagged with graffiti and streaked with slime,” he found that the water was, “utterly delicious.”
“I am not exaggerating when I say that this fountain’s water was, given the unprepossessing look, a magical surprise,” he wrote. “Cool but not icy, it’s extremely fizzy.”
So, be sure to pack your refillable water bottle the next time you’re going to Paris.
