Why Italy Buys the Water It Already Has

Nasoni, vedovelle, liscia o gassata, and the country that has hundreds of water brands

Hi, I’m Peter, and you’re reading Anywhere Italy. Our mission is to cover the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip, in person, one at a time. Come along for free, or pay to keep us on the road.

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One of my most precious cards isn't a credit or debit card. It’s a water card. Yes, a water card. It’s a plastic card you can buy at my little town’s tabac shop with 5 EUR already topped up, and you can use it to get water from the local fountain. The fountain is like a vending machine, next to the church & the school. You bring your own bottle, insert your card, press natural or carbonated, and get ice-cold mineral water.

After a month here and seeing how locals do it, I bought a red plastic carrier that fits 6 bottles (pictured). The vending machine charges 5 eurocents per liter, so 0,05 EUR. It works with coins too, but putting in 1 EUR is a waste of money, so I use the card. I topped up 10 EUR, that is usually enough for a season. During busy months, like summer, now, you need to get to the fountain by 10-11 am, otherwise, it runs out of soda water. Now, insane as it sounds, this whole thing is totally normal in Italy. And my water card is part of a local identity.

This essay will cover the entire water situation in Italy because it is unique in the world and worth discussing.

Italy is the world’s leading bottled water drinker

The top 5 countries in the world that drink bottled water are usually the same, all the time, rankings might differ. Mexico, Italy, Thailand, USA, and Germany. They are not just the top 5; they rank far above everyone else in per capita consumption. But they rank for very, and I mean very different reasons.

Mexico and Thailand are ranking for obvious reasons. Both have questionable tap water quality, a lot of people, and historically solved this with bottled water. If you have spent a longer period in Mexico, all I can say: garrafón. You get it.

The USA is a mixed bag. Americans are notorious for not trusting their tap water. They also have giant water bottles, and they think hydration is a longevity hack. Having a water filter for them equals having guns at home. To be fair, not all of this is paranoia, sometimes tap water, especially in rural USA, is surely questionable. Also, if you have no ideas but you are excellent at marketing, you'll probably launch a water, energy drink, or gym powder brand, people will buy it anyway. Bottled water is convenient, and convenience is an American word.

These countries do not sell mineral water. Almost all bottled water in these countries is glorified tap water, nothing more. European countries are different. Bottled water here is always mineral water because, guess what, tap water in both Italy and Germany is perfectly drinkable.

So much so that Italy has one of the best tap waters. Groundwater is nationally protected, tap water is not just drinkable everywhere, but also top quality. And the country has an insane number of natural springs, spas, water resorts, and medicinal water heritage, so water itself is taken seriously. Very seriously.

Same in Germany. But Germans, Northern Europeans in general, they have a personal bond with fizz. They drink almost exclusively carbonated water, which, in itself, can’t come from the ground, so it has to be bottled.

Italy? The bottled water market outsells the entire soda market 7X. And you know what this scale means, because I wrote about the soda market before: it is the world’s most diverse soda market, completely different from other countries. And if you’ve ever been in a restaurant in Italy, you know the first question they ask is: still or sparkling?

It’s never about hydration

Hydration is a basic service everyone has access to, mostly for free. At least in Italy. Tap water is excellent, everywhere, all the time. Sometimes it’s a bit more chlorinated, or it’s hard, so limescale can build up in pipes, but overall, it’s among the best tap water in the world.

The carbonated mineral water vending machine in my town charges 0.05 euro per liter. I guess it covers the cost of electricity, transporting the water, and carbonation. Vending machines like this are common. Also like free fountains.

Most big cities have free fountains everywhere. Not just that, but every city picked a name for its fountains. Rome = nasoni, over 2,500, one of the largest municipal fountain networks in the world. Most of it is spring water, runs continously, free. Torino = toret, same concept, they have around 800. The water comes from little bull heads, toro, the city’s symbol. Milan = vedovelle. And these are just the branded ones. Any town that has some population has at least a fountain, running, for free, spring water mostly.

Hydration doesn’t put a European country at the top of the world in water consumption. You need something else. A different view on water.

Water is medicine

The first driver is medicinal purposes. It is not the main driver in the numbers, but I believe it is the main driver in how Italians think about water. And, well, as with anything in Italy, it all comes from the Roman Empire. It’s called a thermal bath.

For a thermal bath, you need thermal water. For thermal water, you need the right geography and geology. Because of that, there are two well-known bathing cultures in the world. The Asian and the European. The Asian one is from Japan or China, depending on who you ask, and it also has the highest numbers. The number of Japanese springs outnumbers any other country. I had the chance to try an onsen, it was amazing. European ones are everywhere: Italy, Germany, Czechia, Hungary, Russia, etc. It’s not arrogant to say: all European thermal bathing cultures, including American-exported ones, are copies of the classic Roman bath. In England, the city of Bath is literally named by the Romans because of this.

You might say, OK, but Turkish bath! Yeah, I’m from Hungary. We have amazing Turkish-style baths, mostly brought in by, guess what, Turks. But where did those nice Turkish dudes learn this bathing culture, tell me? Oh, I know sometimes it is uncomfortable to hear that there was a Byzantine Empire. But there was one. We call it the Eastern Roman Empire. And… the circle completes.

Or, you might say, OK, but I’m Russian, and banya! Yeah, so that’s Slavic-Finnish originally, sorry to hurt your feelings, and the spa bathing itself was brought by Peter the Great, who saw the whole spiel in Baden-Baden and thought this should be something that exists in Russia. And guess where Baden-Baden got the idea from? Romans.

Anyway, doesn’t really matter where this concept comes from. What matters is that it's still here. Italy is one of the few countries in the world, as far as I know, that has thermal medicine classes in the universities, along with oncology and internal medicine. They learn the different health benefits of different mineral waters. Water is taught as medicine to doctors and medical professionals at the highest level.

Also, the water, including the thermal medicinal water springs, is owned by the state. The region owns the area. The thermal hotel owns the bottle it sells and the bed where you sleep after treatments. Speaking of those, you can get a prescription from your doctor that covers the basic services in these hotels. Meaning: you can go on a wellness trip at a much lower price at qualifying hotels. Why? Because water is medicine.

And you are not just bathing in these waters. You are drinking them.

Water is local pride

Italy has around 300 active bottled springs. If you are from Germany reading this, you understand why. It’s all about those mountains. In Italy, it means the Alps and the Apennines. Because of this, it’s not a surprise that Northern Italy produces most of the spring water (Piedmont is leading). But every region in the country has its own collection of springs, each with its own mineral water brands. And yes, every town in every region swears that only their water is the cure for everything. I know Italians who bring their local town’s water with them on international trips, no joke.

Since it’s more than 100 brands total, I don’t even bother giving examples. But the bottom line is this: water is local, it is a matter of pride, and this pride shows up in consumption and price. This entire scheme has a market behind it that makes actual sense: local bottled water is 2-3X cheaper than national brands because it has almost no transportation and marketing costs. Umbria drinks Sangemini water not just because the town of San Gemini is famous for its spring, but because it costs half the price of national brands, or any international one.

I’m a marketer by trade, so for me it’s interesting to see how they brand this. The local water brands have the world’s simplest marketing: they name and brand everything after the spring and the town where it is. Uliveto, Panna, Fiuggi, San Pellegrino, Crodo, Boario, Levico, I could go on. These are all towns AND water brand names. Do you know where your water is from? An Italian can tell just by looking at the bottle and reading the name.

And this is where local pride, aka campanilismo, and medicine connect. Every water has different functions. Now, I’m not a doctor or trained in this, but I bet when a young Italian asks their grandparents what they recommend for <insert sickness here>, they probably flash a water name along with the list. Sangemini is for babies and pregnant women. Fiuggi is for kidney stones, because maybe Michelangelo took it and got cured. Uliveto is for digestion, TV ad literally says it’s the water for sportsmen. Lete is for hypertension, because it is low on sodium. Again, the list is endless, I could go on.

Water is life, life is faith

Madonna appears, water comes out from the rock. A sanctuary is built on the spring. The water is sacred, and it has healing powers. If you see a Madonna in the name of the fountain, this is the story. Obviously, there are people who do pilgrimages to that spring. They pray, then fill their water bottles. There are stories about people who were healed of incurable diseases by these waters. The thermal baths? Those are ex-Roman “pagan” baths, baptized and blessed by the Church. It’s Italy after all.

But pilgrimage can be secular. We literally call our walk to our local water a pilgrimage. Our house and the fountain? 10-minute walk. We've fully optimized and figured out the whole process. We have a rolling cart so we don’t need to carry 20+ liters. We have the red carrier with 6 bottles. And almost endless small bottles, plastic and glass. In winter, we're mostly fine with tap water. But during Spring and Summer, we make two weekly pilgrimages to the fountain. Fill up on local spring water. Even though our tap water is perfect.

Water is good manners

The next time you are in a restaurant and they ask if you want still or sparkling, don’t ask for tap water. Not that it doesn’t exist or isn't pure. It’s because ordering the local water is good manners. It shows respect.

On trains, you sometimes get a half-liter bottle for free. Airlines too. Almost every hotel puts free bottled water in their fridge. When guests come over, offering tap water is just cheap, rude, and bad manners. You pop up a bottle, spend a 5-minute small talk on the water itself, where it’s from, what it does, why you have it at home.

Lastly, you know water is important when there's snobbery around it. Frizzante is for barbarians. Cultured people drink slightly carbonated water at most, but still prefer it. If a pharmacy tagged the bottle, it’s even better, and of course, it is even more expensive. And then there is the water that comes with coffee, the “in a glass bottle, please” request at the restaurant, and the Italian paranoia around ice, because ice-cold water is just “unhealthy” and drinking water with ice cubes is outright insulting. And let’s not even start on the idrosommelier, aka the water sommelier, in bars in Rome and Milano, where they sometimes have a water menu separate from their wine list. Yes.

Most of these aren’t treated this seriously, don’t panic. I almost always ask for ice cubes for anything I drink. Sometimes I get the look from the waiter or a “What? Ice cubes? For your water?” and I personally never really look at the water label. And, please don’t send me horse heads, but if I had a favorite water brand, it would be Perrier. But I would never dare to order it in Italy.