bottled water
 

Hello

I am just wondering if it is expensive to buy bottled water in Paris and Amsterdam. How much do one needs to put aside for 3 meals each day .. Thanks

Water is cheap - real cheap. Meal cost depends on how important "meals" are to you??? You can spend $40 per day or $400 per day per person. DO NOT opt for breakfast at your hotel if you are trying to keep meal costs down.

Stu Dudley

What is the reason for buying bottled water?

As kerouac says why buy bottled water?

If you buy it at a café or restaurant it is expensive, very expensive. Tap water is normally available for free, and generally tastes a lot better than bottled.

Supermarkets sell bottled water. Again it's not cheap imho. Better to bring, or buy, a reusable water bottle and fill it from the tap.
Better for the environment too.

Some hotels have breakfast included in the price. If it is a buffet you can often eat enough that you don't need much, if any, lunch. Evening meals can vary in price depending on where you choose to eat.

Bottled water (there's really no need for it but I do agree the water in Amsterdam tastes horrible) costs €0.25 per 1.5 liters at Albert Heijn supermarket.

As hetismij says: prices for diner vary a lot. A simple pizza may cost €15, add drinks, let's say €20 to €25 per meal. However, if you want to eat a bit better, €45 to €60 per meal is not uncommon but you can easily spend more.

Prices in France are somewhat comparable I think.

Why bottled water?

If you must, at least buy it at a grocery store, where prices will be cheapest.

Amsterdam water is very good. Nearly as good as where I live. It is filtered through dunes and I think it tastes just fine. Far better than in many other cities around the world.

€0.25 is the price for a tetra-pak of water.

Plastic bottled water costs more, and the larger bottles have a deposit on them. Smaller bottles should be placed in the appropriate recycling container.
But why buy it when you can have it for free. You will not be able to consume water you have bought in a supermarket with your meal, anywhere, unless your meal is a take-away.

The main brand in France -- Cristalline -- is about 0.25€ for a 1.5L bottle too.

>>Water is cheap - real cheap<<<

>>Supermarkets sell bottled water. Again it's not cheap imho<<

>>Bottled water ..water in Amsterdam .. costs €0.25 per 1.5 liters at Albert Heijn supermarket.<<<

>The main brand in France -- Cristalline -- is about 0.25€ for a 1.5L bottle too.>>

I guess there are different opinions of what "cheap" is.

Stu Dudley

Water from the tap is so cheap they actually call it "free." The whole bottled water thing probably originated in Europe, got glamorized in the US, and generates a lot of revenue for stockholders.

Buy ONE bottle of cheap water in a supermarket and re-fill it from the tap as you go.

I only buy bottled water if I need a new plastic bottle. At the moment, I have a bottle from 2004 that I am still using in my refrigerator. The only reason I know the date is because I brought it back from Vietnam.

Why have do many French homes I go to still use bottled water - I know the water sources are at least as good as in the U.S. and perhaps better with the vaunted ozonization process - so why do stores still stock rows and rows of bottled water - some French at least must be drinking it but why?

why do Americans more and more buy bottled water in bottles that often end up in huge pools hundreds of miles around in our oceans?

Why in a French restaurant unless you ask for tap water they automatically bring bottled water if you ask for water?

I have no idea why people buy bottled water (other than stupidity).

If you ask for a carafe d'eau, nobody will bring you bottled water.

Most bottled water in the Netherlands is tap water anyway. Unless it specifies it is from a source, such as Spa, which is a lot more expensive, then it is tap water.

Given the price we pay for excellent water per lire at home buying it in bottles in expensive, unnecessary and polluting, yet still plenty of people do it.

I don't drink bottled water at home here in the San Francisco area - I have a plastic bottle that is probably older than kerouac's that I refill from the tap. We get our water from the mountains, so it is quite good. When we lived in Laguna Beach in Southern Calif, I would not drink the tap water because it smelled so bad. I think it came from the Colorado River. We even purchased "Alhambra" water to drink ourselves and to water our house plants.

While in France, we purchast Badoit - because I like the gas content (Perrier has too much gas) and also the magnesium that seems to have a refreshing/sobering effect. The fizzy water in the US has too much fizz for me.

Stu Dudley

"Why in a French restaurant unless you ask for tap water they automatically bring bottled water if you ask for water?"

Because they make a profit out of it.

If you ask for a carafe d'eau, nobody will bring you bottled water>

OK I get it - like Pvoyageuse says - fleecing tourists but French folk would ask correctly - like my in-laws who always get tap water - but do I assume that the fancier the restaurant the more likely even French folk would ask for some kind of bottled water?

It's funny when my French son would come over for the summer when he was young he would insist I buy bottled water for him - it was not because of any tradition but he, and all other French folk I've hosted, thought our local water stunk - just tasted terrible even though I had never realized or felt that. Now with a new ozonization system like used in Europe for long our water has lost its terrible taste!

It is quite common for foreign water, anywhere in the world, to taste "weird" -- different purification technique, different mineral content, etc.

I have always considered that to be part of the trip anyway. Since I am (hopefully) eating completely different food and experiencing other totally different things -- some of which might not be as nice as at home and others which might be far better -- drinking different water, even if I don't like the taste, is not at all a problem for me.

Places with non potable water are a different problem, but not really common on the continent about which we are talking.

Places with non potable water are a different problem, but not really common on the continent about which we are talking>

hey hey to that - and many Americans who have not been to Europe may naively think in places like Italy the water is not fit to drink - I hear this a lot and it is of course completely fallacious like kerouac says - things I have read again that the ozonization process much more common in Europe is surperior to many American water purifying methods so the water in Europe may well be better of quality than the one they have back home.

That said my cousin who has been to Europe a zillion times and very much in the know will not drink water from taps in hotels - well older hotels at least because he thinks they could still be using lead piping or old pipes that produce contamination perhaps even if the water if purified well at the source. I am not sure that this could not be a concern in hotels and restaurants in some ancient cities.

"fleecing tourists but French folk would ask correctly" -

Not at all. Lots of French people order bottled water with their meal. The waiter assumes you do and usually asks "plate ou gazeuse", it is up to you to decline.

"but do I assume that the fancier the restaurant the more likely even French folk would ask for some kind of bottled water?"
Probably, yes.

That's true, this isn't a tourist issue. In fact, in Germany, they really do not want to give you anything but tap water, I think it is disgraceful as it is so bad for the environment.

I rarely drink bottled water anywhere in developed countries, I don't believe in it. Even when traveling, I generally buy one bottle and if I want to carry one around with me during the day while doing the tourist things, I just keep filling it up from the tap in my hotel room. I never order it in restaurants.

If you have to buy it, I think it costs about a euro from the vending machines in the metro, and supermarkets a bit less. This is in Paris.

I do buy carbonated water occasionally for a beverage but that's because I don't drink soda pop hardly ever (ie, Pepsi). SO I may order a Perrier or Badoit as a beverage in a cafe, but I wouldn't order gaseous water with dinner.

sorry, I think from the OP they want to order this in a restaurant. Well, you will have to pay their prices if you do that, you can't bring in your own bottles. It costs 2-3 euro in a restaurant, I think, for regular flat water in a bottle. Badoit and Perrier cost more, they cost about the same as any cafe drink (more liek 3-4 euro).

Restaurants may charge a lot for bottled water. Supermarkets often sell bottled water practically at cost, because it brings in shoppers who usually buy other things.

Many (most?) tourists carry bottles of water around with them to drink from during the day.

(Most of the people in my office have either small bottles they buy or larger ones they refill from the water cooler. When you walk into a conference room for a meeting you often see a computer and a bottle of water in front of each person.)

I always carry a small bottle of water onto planes and when touring during the day. It's important to keep hydrated. (And sorry - most tap water tastes not very good - at least to someone from NYC, where water is very soft and essentially tasteless.)

As has been written here the bottled water is not expensive. I suggest drinking it becaue signs about water potablility are often hard to see, many people drink the water and then discover the signs, sometimes it is not posted at all.
Water is good in Rome, or it was, but in most other places its not drinkable. You can visit web sites put out by the cities to find out if it is or not. For example in Orvieto the water is never ok for children or elderly and when it rains no one should drink it because of high amounts of lead and aluminum content.
In Puglia the water is not drinkable from the taps.
Even in the Calabrian mountain towns the water has become undrinkable from taps as pollutants have multiplied in the last decades. Better to be safe. I have lived in Italy for over 6 years and there is a lot ot learn and take account of while traveling and living here.
I think it is more difficult to find drinkable tap water in Northeren Europe where pollution levels are really high!

What total nonsense Giocomina. Tap water in Northern Europe is of the highest quality. All tap water must meet stringent standards and does, unlike certain classes of bottled water, which can be high in pollutants and in undesirable elements, including arsenic!

If tap water in northern Europe is so polluted why aren't we all dropping like flies from terrible diseases?

FRance also has lots of drink fountsind In Paris there is even one that has fizzy water!Personally I can go an hour or 2 without water and I have wine with meals

fountains!

I wonder why my supermarket in Munich carries at least 30 different types of bottled water. From store brands for 25c to more expensive sources for €2 per liter. No tourist ever shops there.

Few people will offer you tap water when you visit their homes here. It's considered too cheap for guests.
While I personally hardly ever buy bottled water, it's really common to do so here in Germany. Usually not the plain still water, but more often the carbonated or flavored variants. It's more a lifestyle choice than a rational decision because tap water was not drinkable. Like when you eat Italian, you expect them to have San Pellegrino and only 1 out of 100 or 500 customers would ask for tap water instead. OTOH, when you go to a Viennese-style coffee house, you expect a (free) glass of tap water with your choice of coffee. Go figure, not rational.

Though in some places like Berlin or the Northern plains where I come from, tap water is 100pct safe and under permanent control, but does not have much of a taste. Most people will have a bottled water at home if they want to drink it pure. For cooking and making coffee you would use tap water.
I guess bottled water must be one produce with the highest profit margins for companies and retail, especially the high end products.

Some of the mineral waters available in supermarkets in France are drunk for medical reasons, although I tend to think that the medical value is mostly in the mind of the drinker except for the really nasty ones like Vichy Célestins which absolutely nobody would drink for pleasure.

In my own neighborhood, I see mostly immigrants buying the bottled water -- some of them live in extremely decrepit buildings where the water might indeed not be safe, but I think it is mostly out of habit when one comes from a country where the tap water is not potable.

As for not offering tap water to guests, that is a bunch of hooey. I don't have any bottled water in my apartment and none of my friends do either.

The best tap water I've ever had on my travels throughout the world was in 1975 in Sofia in Bulgaria. As a matter of fact, the local guide claimed Bulgaria had more octogenerians per capita than any other country in the world and credited it to the water (and the yogurt they ate a lot then too). Of course I haven't been back there in many many years so I don't know if it's still true.

Then of course there are the blind aste tests that are conducted all the time by Consumer Reports and what always seems to win is New York City tap water.

The only reason, sometimes being "forced" to buy bottled water wherever one is travellig is on a hot day, filling uyp a water bottle early in the morning leaves one with warm water by the middle of the day and there's nothing like a nice cold glass of water (although I am sure there are some health practioners out there who will claim cold water is not good for you.

Plus you have to remember all the BPA that leeches into water in plastic bottles. Tap water or glass bottles only for us.

Kerouac.. You may be surprised that local customs differ by country.
While in France or the States it may be "hooey" that you would not offer guests tap water, it is very much the norm that hosts in Germany would be very apologetic if you asked for water and they had nothing but tap water to offer. It would also be considered ill-mannered or boorish to give a guest asking for water a glass from the tap without asking first if that was okay.

Overheard in the water aisle of the supermarket:

"It's all just Joe's hose."

'Many (most?) tourists carry bottles of water around with them to drink from during the day. '

Well yes, but this is one of the things that my French friends (and television commentators) find very odd about North Americans. You may well feel thirsty, but this idea of always having a bottle of water (or a huge cup of coffee or a huge soft drink) is puzzling to many of us.

Sorry, Cowboy, I always thought the Germans were down to earth and sensible. Now I have just learned that my German friends in Stockstadt have been grossly insulting me with their tap water.

LOL.. It's okay to do it with friends.
But our water works would not regulary run expensive adverstising campaigns to educate people that they can actually drink water "raw from the tap". As I said, I don't buy bottled water myself. But it's much more common to shlep home gallons of Alpine spring water (or Vittel, Volvic ). My colleague, for example, drinks nothing but Volvic. Especially the flavored/ parfumé Volvic waters.

Even though the tap water in Munich comes from a mountain source.

OTOH, bottled water is usually not tap water, but needs to come from an underground source to be mineral water. People usually think it's purer and healthier due to the mineral content. Other people may also not trust the pipes in their apartment building.

Well, marketing rules.

The only relevant information for the tourist could be that one reason for not getting tap water for free in a restaurant in Germany is that there is barely any local demand for it. Even if they had it printed in bold letters on the menu, I'd guess that only very few locals ever would order it.
It's in the same league as asking for ice for beer or wine in France.

We don't like to drink tap water when we travel to Europe as it upsets our systems....okay for residents as their systems are familiar with the different bacterias. When in Paris we bought bottled water in Franprix or The Supermarche and found it about half the price of bottled water in the US as well as fresh fruits and veggies.....no more expensive than US.

I drink tap water in Paris, I order it in cafes/ restos. It is free. It has never upset my tummy, it is clean and tastes great, some people just think they need bottled water, usually very old people who are thinking back many eons when "foriegn" tap water wasn't considered safe in many places, and by the very young, who have been completely brainwashed into thinking they can't survive without bottled water and their cell phones,, lol ( I have actually read posts from younger folks who are sincerely concerned about how will they get around without their electronic map and leash,, seemingling forgetting that most of us did fine back in the dark ages.. )

Anyone trying to save money, do not bother with bottle water in Paris,, buy one bottle at the store , then refill from tap as you go.