Paris Traveling: Bring Water Around the City of Lights

Once again the heat is on in Paris, and tourists are sweating on their pilgrimage, from the Louvre all the way to the Eiffel Tower.

Every year people flock to the City of Lights, to see the sites, to take each other's pictures in front of all the monuments so known to the whole world, Notre Dame, la Seine, Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and so on. Funny enough, every year it looks as if they are caught by surprise, when the July heat hits them hard. In this heat Parisians slow down, stay inside during the hottest hours of the day, but the tourist of Paris don't have time to waste indoors, and so they drag their hot bodies and thirsty throats all over Paris, even when the most sensible thing would be to sit down and relax.

Of course this is a wonderful and welcomed opportunity for so many to sell, not just miniature Eiffel Towers, but bottled water on the tourist routes all over Paris. So, prices of water increase and stay at a level all summer long which is ridiculous. But, with a little planning, there's no need to spend money better spent elsewhere, on small bottles of water sold by sneaky and tricky people.

Paris is a city where supermarkets are to be found on nearly every street corner, or at least on more or less every street. If you compare the price of ½ liter bottles, sold on the streets and other types of private outlets, usually 2,50 €, to the price paid for 1 ½ Evian sold in a supermarket, Evian being one of the most expensive bottled waters in France, usually between 1 and 1,20 € per bottle, you can do the math , and see how much of your holiday budget you will be spending on water, if you don't bring it along from a supermarket.

A simple calculation for 3 days of 3 liters of water per day would leave you with an excess expense of 12 €. Now, in the Parisian summer heat, walking around all day, 3 liters are not enough for a grown person, so the excess expense could easily double. Buy Cristaline at 0.35 € per 1 ½ liter bottle, and the result is even better. The very good news is that, unlike so many large and capital cities around the world, in Paris you can drink tap water in your hotel room. Paris has got some of the cleanest tap water in Europe.

And it is not as if you cannot find places to spend your money in Paris. Unfortunately, Paris is no longer a city for the poor artist and bohemians; they could not even afford a broom closet in this day and age. No, Paris is expensive; but, with the right guidebook, and some common sense added to it, it can be affordable, and after all, there's only one Paris, and c'est magnifique!