%3Amax_bytes(150000)%3Astrip_icc()%2FTAL-piran-slovenia-CLEANCOASTALS0725-7a8d8975209e43c39a6129ad4fe93ee1.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
These 2 Countries Have the Cleanest Coastal Waters in Europe, Report Finds
The European Environment Agency (EEA), in cooperation with the European Commission, has released their European bathing water assessment for the 2024 bathing season, which declares that Slovenia and Lithuania have tied for first place for the cleanest coastal waters in the world.
The report assesses bathing water quality across 22,127 sites in the 27 EU member states, plus Albania and Switzerland. In the most recent assessment, 85 percent of the locations met the stringent standard of 'excellent' bathing water quality, while 96 percent met the minimum quality standards. The sites include beachers, rivers, lakes, and swimming holes, which are all tested by national and local authorities for bacterial contamination.The quality of coastal bathing waters—defined as waters "situated on the sea or transitional water coastline"—was found to be generally better than that of rivers and lakes. It's all part of the EU Bathing Water Directive, which was adopted in 2006.
It's important to note that both Slovenia and Lithuania, while rated most highly, also had a relatively small number of sites tested, with only 21 tested in Slovenia and only 16 in Lithuania. But, the sites cumulatively gained top marks.
'The results … show that Europeans can confidently bathe in the vast majority of the EU's bathing sites that meet the EU's bathing quality standards,' Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, said in a statement obtained by Travel + Leisure.
Slovenia, which famously has 29 miles on the Adriatic Sea, recently announced the launch of a digital nomad visa that will be available from November 2025 and will allow remote workers to live in the country for up to a year, similar to schemes available in other EU countries including Greece, Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Germany, and Estonia.
The most popular bases for a coastal Lithuanian vacation are Palanga, Neringa and Klaipeda. In 2024, Lithuania was ranked the happiest country in the world for young people under the age of 30, according to the World Happiness Report.
In 2024, Slovenia's neighbor Croatia was ranked the highest for the cleanest coastal waters by the report, with 894 bodies of water tested.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Trump criticized the idea of presidential vacations. His Scotland trip is built around golf.
The White House isn't calling Trump's five-day, midsummer jaunt a vacation, but rather a working trip where the Republican president might hold a news conference and sit for interviews with U.S. and British media outlets. Trump was also talking trade in separate meetings with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Trump is staying at his properties near Turnberry and Aberdeen, where his family owns two golf courses and is opening a third on Aug. 13. Trump played golf over the weekend at Turnberry and is helping cut the ribbon on the new course on Tuesday. Advertisement He's not the first president to play in Scotland: Dwight D. Eisenhower played at Turnberry in 1959, more than a half century before Trump bought it, after meeting with French President Charles de Gaulle in Paris. But none of Trump's predecessors has constructed a foreign itinerary around promoting vacation sites his family owns and is actively expanding. Advertisement It lays bare how Trump has leveraged his second term to pad his family's profits in a variety of ways, including overseas development deals and promoting cryptocurrencies, despite growing questions about ethics concerns. 'You have to look at this as yet another attempt by Donald Trump to monetize his presidency,' said Leonard Steinhorn, who teaches political communication and courses on American culture and the modern presidency at American University. 'In this case, using the trip as a PR opportunity to promote his golf courses.' A parade of golf carts and security accompanied President Trump at Turnberry, on the Scottish coast southwest of Glasgow, on Sunday. Christopher Furlong/Getty President Trump on the links. Christopher Furlong/Getty Presidents typically vacation in the US Franklin D. Roosevelt went to the Bahamas, often for the excellent fishing, five times between 1933 and 1940. He visited Canada's Campobello Island in New Brunswick, where he had vacationed as a child, in 1933, 1936 and 1939. Reagan spent Easter 1982 on vacation in Barbados after meeting with Caribbean leaders and warning of a Marxist threat that could spread throughout the region from nearby Grenada. Presidents also never fully go on vacation. They travel with a large entourage of aides, receive intelligence briefings, take calls and otherwise work away from Washington. Kicking back in the United States, though, has long been the norm. Harry S. Truman helped make Key West, Florida, a tourist hot spot with his 'Little White House' cottage there. Several presidents, including James Buchanan and Benjamin Harrison, visited the Victorian architecture in Cape May, New Jersey. More recently, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama boosted tourism on Massachusetts' Martha's Vineyard, while Trump has buoyed Palm Beach, Florida, with frequent trips to his Mar-a-Lago estate. But any tourist lift Trump gets from his Scottish visit is likely to most benefit his family. 'Every president is forced to weigh politics versus fun on vacation,' said Jeffrey Engel, David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who added that Trump is 'demonstrating his priorities.' Advertisement 'When he thinks about how he wants to spend his free time, A., playing golf, B., visiting places where he has investments and C., enhancing those investments, that was not the priority for previous presidents, but it is his vacation time,' Engel said. It's even a departure from Trump's first term, when he found ways to squeeze in visits to his properties while on trips more focused on work. Trump stopped at his resort in Hawaii to thank staff members after visiting the memorial site at Pearl Harbor and before embarking on an Asia trip in November 2017. He played golf at Turnberry in 2018 before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland. Trump once decried the idea of taking vacations as president. 'Don't take vacations. What's the point? If you're not enjoying your work, you're in the wrong job,' Trump wrote in his 2004 book, 'Think Like a Billionaire.' During his presidential campaign in 2015, he pledged to 'rarely leave the White House.' Even as recently as a speech at a summit on artificial intelligence in Washington on Wednesday, Trump derided his predecessor for flying long distances for golf — something he's now doing. 'They talked about the carbon footprint and then Obama hops onto a 747, Air Force One, and flies to Hawaii to play a round of golf and comes back,' he said. On the green... Christopher Furlong/Getty ... and in the sand. Christopher Furlong/Getty Presidential vacations and any overseas trips were once taboo Trump isn't the first president not wanting to publicize taking time off. George Washington was criticized for embarking on a New England tour to promote the presidency. Some took issue with his successor, John Adams, for leaving the then-capital of Philadelphia in 1797 for a long visit to his family's farm in Quincy, Massachusetts. James Madison left Washington for months after the War of 1812. Advertisement Teddy Roosevelt helped pioneer the modern presidential vacation in 1902 by chartering a special train and directing key staffers to rent houses near Sagamore Hill, his home in Oyster Bay, New York, according to the White House Historical Association. Four years later, Roosevelt upended tradition again, this time by becoming the first president to leave the country while in office. The New York Times noted that Roosevelt's 30-day trip by yacht and battleship to tour construction of the Panama Canal 'will violate the traditions of the United States for 117 years by taking its President outside the jurisdiction of the Government at Washington.' In the decades since, where presidents opted to vacation, even outside the U.S., has become part of their political personas. In addition to New Jersey, Grant relaxed on Martha's Vineyard. Calvin Coolidge spent the 1928 Christmas holidays at Sapelo Island, Georgia. Lyndon B. Johnson had his 'Texas White House,' a Hill Country ranch. Eisenhower vacationed in Newport, Rhode Island. John F. Kennedy went to Palm Springs, California, and his family's compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, among other places. Richard Nixon had the 'Southern White House' on Key Biscayne, Florida, while Joe Biden traveled frequently to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, while also visiting Nantucket, Massachusetts, and St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. George H.W. Bush was a frequent visitor to his family's property in Kennebunkport, Maine, and didn't let the start of the Gulf War in 1991 detour him from a monthlong vacation there. His son, George W. Bush, opted for his ranch in Crawford, Texas, rather than a more posh destination. Advertisement Presidential visits help tourism in some places more than others, but Engel said that for some Americans, 'if the president of the Untied States goes some place, you want to go to the same place.' He noted that visitors emulating presidential vacations are out 'to show that you're either as cool as he or she, that you understand the same values as he or she or, heck, maybe you'll bump into he or she.'


New York Times
3 hours ago
- New York Times
Dozens of Wildfires Burn in Greece and Turkey as Temperatures Soar
Wildfires are burning across Greece and Turkey, as southern Europe confronts a series of heat waves that have scorched parts of the continent this summer. In Greece, thousands of people were forced to evacuate from their homes over the weekend, including from a village near Athens. Officials said on Sunday that the fire had been contained but warned that swirling embers threatened to rekindle the blaze. Temperatures have soared, reaching close to 111 degrees Fahrenheit, or 44 degrees Celsius, on parts of the Greek mainland on Saturday before cooling slightly on Sunday. The fire service would not have been able to cope if 'there had been another two or three fires like the one near Athens,' Vassilis Vathrakoyiannis, Greece's fire service spokesman, said in an interview. Firefighters were still battling to control major blazes on Kythira, an island popular with tourists, and Messinia, on the Peloponnese peninsula, Mr. Vathrakoyiannis said. In Turkey, firefighters were fighting 84 blazes on Saturday, Ibrahim Yumakli, the agriculture and forestry minister, told reporters, adding that the country would be on high alert until October. 'We are going through risky days,' he said, as he called on people in the country to work to prevent fires from starting. Extreme heat has gripped much of Europe this summer, breaking records, stalling city life and endangering residents. Temperatures have hovered around 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) in several areas, and reached above 110 in countries, including Portugal, Spain and Greece. Greece faces a challenge as it tries to preserve its image as an idyllic tourist destination while also facing the growing threat of wildfires. Authorities say there has been an uptick in both the number and the intensity of blazes in recent years, which many experts attribute to climate change. Earlier this month, a blaze forced 1,500 people to evacuate from homes and hotels on the popular tourist island of Crete. 'We must do all we can to restrict every possible risk,' Giannis Kefalogiannis, Greece's climate crisis and civil protection minister, said on Saturday. 'We have injured firefighters, human lives were put at risk, homes were burned and forestland destroyed.' Mr. Kefalogiannis said the government had deployed a record number of firefighters to prepare for the fire season. This weekend alone, almost 500 firefighters have had to contend with five major blazes across the country. On Kythira, the Coast Guard had to remove bathers from beaches on Saturday as the fire approached. In Messinia, heat and high winds were continuing to fuel the fire overnight. Greek television coverage of the fire in Drosopigi, the village near Athens, showed residents fleeing by car and explosions at factories containing flammable materials. In the footage, two people on a roof used a water hose to beat back giant flames from a neighboring house. The Greek climate crisis and civil protection ministry said that the wildfire threat would remain high into at least Monday.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Joao Felix set for Al-Nassr medical after Chelsea accept £26m offer featuring 'add-ons and heavy sell-on clause' in order to meet Blues' asking price
Felix authorised to travel to Saudi Arabia for medical Add-ons and 'heavy sell-on clause' make up large part of deal Chelsea value Portuguese at €50m Follow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱 WHAT HAPPENED? Fabrizio Romano reports the deal includes "add-ons and heavy sell-on clause" in order to meet Chelsea's valuation. The Stamford Bridge club had slapped a €50m price-tag on the 24-year-old. THE BIGGER PICTURE The former prodigy has been given the green light to travel to Saudi Arabia ahead of the deal. It bring's Felix's second spell with the west London club to an end. Across this latest stint, and an initial period on loan from Atletico Madrid in 2023, Felix has made 40 appearances, and scored 11 goals for Chelsea. He spent the second half of the 2024-25 season on loan at AC Milan. DID YOU KNOW? This is the latest change of scene for a player that promised so much early on in his career. The guaranteed €30m fee brings the total disclosed spending by clubs on Felix to €209m; €225.5m, when including loan fees. WHAT NEXT FOR FELIX? The 24-year-old needs regular first-team football to re-capture the form that made him one of world football's hottest properties. Perhaps a couple of seasons linking up with his compatriot Cristiano Ronaldo, could be the impetus Felix needs to extract more from his undeniable talents.