# London & Paris: Where are your drinking fountains? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 26, 2005, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-paris-where-are-your-drinking-fountains/305564 "2005-05-26T05:49:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-paris-where-are-your-drinking-fountains/305564/21 "2005-05-27T16:47:05Z")
We just don’t drink much water, and people who do either buy mineral water or carry a bottle of tap or filtered water with them. It never really gets so hot that anyone is in dangr of dehydration. Although there aren’t drinking fountains in Paris, there are lots of taps with drinkable water (eau potable) on the streets, you just have to bring your own bottle. ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-paris-where-are-your-drinking-fountains/305564/22 "2005-05-27T17:19:52Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > Victorian philanthropists would install them in market squares for the refreshment of the working poor, and to discourage them from falling into the evils of hard drink. Yep, because all those people only drank booze because they were _thirsty_, not because their lives were crap… ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-paris-where-are-your-drinking-fountains/305564/23 "2005-05-27T17:38:36Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > One word for that: _sucker_. Sorry, but if you don’t learn to ask for tap water in the local language, expect to pay a premium. Yup. You ask for tap water, and, just like in America, you get it free of charge. You ask for simple water, and you’ll get the bottled variety, usually sparkling (at least in most places I’ve been.) ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-paris-where-are-your-drinking-fountains/305564/24 "2005-05-27T17:47:21Z")
**DMark** Actual water with actual ice, in Germany? I think I would have been in love! ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-paris-where-are-your-drinking-fountains/305564/25 "2005-05-27T17:53:07Z")
The best tasting water in the world is from a spring on a hill in or near Heidelberg. We were shocked to not see “Kein Trinkwasser” on a fountain at the side of the road and then doubly shocked to see a family of Germans pull up and fill a couple large bottles. They even drank some right there. They told us to try and we did. Germans, when I was there, were generally ticked off about pollution in water and did not think tapwater was pure enough to be safe. I watched the legislature in Bonn debate on water pollution and boy were they ever pissed off. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-paris-where-are-your-drinking-fountains/305564/26 "2005-05-27T21:26:53Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > In America, you’ll find drinking fountains in all of those places, and they’ll be as common as restrooms. Yeah, but half of them will be broken, and half the remainder will have chewing gum and/or ketchup packets crammed into the nozzle. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-paris-where-are-your-drinking-fountains/305564/27 "2005-05-27T23:09:32Z")
On my first trip to Paris, I learned to buy a large bottle of water the first day, then refill it from the hotel each morning, and carry it in my backpack. They do have low faucets for dogs, though I wasn’t brave enough to refill my bottle from one of them. In Vienna, I was surprised to find a water fountain at Schwarzenbergplatz. According to the plaque, the water came directly from a glacier in the Alps. It was the best I’ve ever tasted. And cold too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/london-paris-where-are-your-drinking-fountains/305564.md?page=1)