Florence Italy

The city of Rome has mineral water on tap. The city’s water source is an underground lake which is filtered by a series of aquafers. Since Rome has 3000 year old plumbing, you can get free, yummy, mineral water from any fountain in the city. During rush hour it’s a common sight to see commuters, filling up bottles with roman tap water, on their way home to the suburbs.

Since I’ve been spoiled by roman tap water, I was kind of surprised to learn that Italians drink the most bottled water out of all the Europeans. Then I came to Florence.

Florentine tap water is disgusting. (Please note that this assessment comes from someone who drinks Los Angeles’s notoriously yucky tap water). Florence’s water is so heavily chlorinated that my bathroom here always smells like the dressing rooms at the public pool. Since I don’t have a Brita filter, I’ve been dechlorinating my drinking water by letting tap water sit out overnight in a pitcher. (Chlorine evaporates). This makes the water marginally less disgusting. I don’t want to break down and buy bottled water every day because A: that takes a horrible toll on the environment and B: I can’t afford it. Because Florence is funded almost entirely by tourism, in my neighborhood a 500 ml bottle of water costs 1.5 Euro.

Yesterday, while trading in books at The Paperback Exchange, I overheard two women talking about the free water machine in Piazza Della Signoria. What? Free filtered water? I immediately walked over to the piazza to see if I could find this fabled Florentine watering hole.

The water machine is conveniently located next to the Palazzo Vecchio, behind the Neptune Fountain (of course). In addition to delivering free, filtered, refrigerated water 24 hours a day, you can choose between still or FIZZY water. Oh. My. God. It’s a giant seltzer machine. Oh, America, why can’t we have nice things?

In the last 24 hours I’ve refilled the 1 liter San Pellegrino bottle that I’ve been using as a thermos six times. I’m going to have to buy a six pack of San Pellegrino so I can make one daily trip to the village well instead of constantly cruising the water machine like some sad, seltzer groupie.

Come si dici “easily impressed” in italiano?