What about free sparkling water ?

I reassure you, most of these fountains are offering normal water, only a small number are offering sparkling water.

@topffer Great news!:)

It is only in Paris, I would also like to have one in the park near my home. Can I ask you what is your country ?

@topffer I was born in Guyana, South America, and I reside presently in the Caribbean.

@topffer Do you still need the information?

@topffer .....Yes, that is true. I am thinking of my local and so many things more important than sparkling water.

Buildings are expensive in Paris, but the local taxes are among the less expensive in France : I would pay 3 times less for my house in Paris than in my city, and there is no sparkling water. A large part of Paris lives on tourism, I think it is a good idea to offer free tap water to people.

@topffer We are more into the southern part of La Ribera tops this is quite flat and the water here has literally rotted no end of people´s teeth through such bad quality. There are fuentes going into your part of the World and Navarra too that is true. I love good fresh clear water no taste like it. Glad you have such things going.

@lovinangelsinstead21 I am lucky. In a city where I worked despite of the water softening the water was still chalky and was leaving white marks inside the pans when I was boiling water. Nothing better than a good old fountain offering fresh water from a source

Tap water in Paris can be sometimes a bit chlorinated, but it is drinkable. Besides sparkling water there are also a handful of fountains delivering mineral water from a deep source in Paris. You are not far from the mountains, I would have thought that you had some good mountain water at the tap ? The quality is good in my area, because it comes from a deep source, but in several places around it is more or less polluted because of agriculture, and sometimes they recommend to not drink it.

@topffer Here, I know a lot of parents want their children to avoid drinking water from public fountains. Kids will drink from fountains in school because it's there, but you will see many kids bringing their own waters (in bottles or fancy metal sports bottles) from home. It's not so much the taste, but people think of the germs in a fountain - and that gross patina that forms on the metal where the water comes out. Bottled water is extremely popular here - which also means there are a lot of plastic bottle trash around too. Plus the fact that many of the pipe systems are old now and could have lead or whatever toxins leaking in . . . not so much in our area, but in other states tap water has been known to be bad. Anyway, so now that the population is into bottled water, many do have a distaste for tap water. But yah, perhaps some bubblies can help to make it appear to be more tasteful . . . add a slice of lemon or fruit and you have a nice free flavored water there!

@much2say I am happy that most of people have not this phobia for germs here. I suppose that as they give an average 10 kisses and 10 handshakes to their coworkers every morning, they know that you cannot get ill easily from the germs of others. I am not speaking of my case, I spent most of my life handling dangerous germs in the ground without getting any disease from them and I have never been afraid to drink at a public fountain, I like to live dangerously. I would not drink tap water if it was reported to be bad. We have no more lead in public pipes, we receive 2 reports/year about water quality, and in my place it is good, probably better than many waters sold in plastic bottles : there are 7 different categories of plastic bottles used for water in the EU, and 3 of them may represent a danger for health (not sure, but suspected)...

You do not need to bring any bottle in Paris if you drink tap water, there are water fountains in quite all public gardens and near the Seine. I think it is an effort to make people not drinking tap water (about 20% in Paris) to taste it. I am not sure that it is a success. I tasted it, and it is exactly like Seltzer water. This one is on a pedestrian path near the Seine, and I saw a jogger stopping at it to drink.

Looking. I believe you, but I cannot tell. I read about "fizzy mineral water", I do not find a date, but being mineral it could be there before 2015. They have installed the new Casa dell'Acqua kiosks offering sparkling water in 2015. It is very nice to have places offering mineral water inside your city ! The tap water in Paris does not taste bad, but is a bit chlorinated.

@MALUSE Thank you for the link. I know that for the Romans, they could not imagine a city without public fountains and public baths. I have even seen private aqueducts to deserve farms.

@topffer The Ancient Romans were the first to install fountains in Rome. Maybe you find this interesting:

@topffer that is wonderful. they have controlled the contamination so well

The tap water is not drinkable when it is not boiled in your place ?

@topffer Some drink it,but I don't.I have to use the boiled tap water to make tea.

I notice that quite all responders are not liking that. There are very few free sparkling water fountains in France, all are in Paris. Water fountains with regular tap water are present in all large cities, but they may be difficult to find (they are often in public gardens). In villages most of the time the only free water available is in the cemetery to water flowers.

The problem is to know where they are : most of the time in public gardens and squares, but the number has always been huge, and you can find some even in the woods of Boulogne and Vincennes. Here the official map.

I do not think I will ever have a fountain offering sparkling water in my city. For what I have read it is not a lot more expensive than regular tap water once it is installed. But for the moment there are only a few offering sparkling water in Paris, usually inside large public gardens.

@topffer I guess that makes sense and Paris probably does have some extra money lying around. Whatever gets people to drink more water and not just buy water bottles all the time to cut down on plastics.

When you are thirsty it is certainly better than to drink the water of the Seine. It seems that many responders do not like sparkling water.

@topffer Perhaps my mother did give me something similar when I was a child (medication against whatever!). I learned to hate anything resemble those awful medicines!