Paris tops the bucket lists of many people who thirst for travel. Now it will top the list for anyone who’s just plain thirsty, too.
The city will install fountains that dispense sparkling water, or fontaines d’eau pétillante, around the entire city, Conde Nast Traveler reports.
The move is an expansion of an initiative that launched in 2010 with 8 fountains of bubbly water at the city’s fingertips. Now, Paris City Hall has “embarked on an ambitious-sounding scheme that will ultimately provide at least one fountain of sparkling water in every one of Paris’ 20 arrondissements,” CityLab reports. The fountains are equipped with CO2 carbonators, which give it its fizz.
Shelling out effervescent water gratuitement is delightful, and also impactful. The city’s goal, CityLab explained, is to get people to drink more water and reduce the amount of plastic waste created by the amount of bottled water drank by Paris residents each year.
It’s a pretty genius, and not to mention delicious, idea ― amd also painfully Parisian. That was not lost on excited social media users, who were as quick to joke about it being bougie as they were to express extreme jealousy.
You can keep your humdrum regular old water fountains, other cities ― we’ll take ours with a side of carbonation. After all, we can’t think of a better, more affordable way to wash down our pain au chocolat.