As well as unprecedented heatwaves, and the search for cool havens, the Italian summer brings us the chance to enjoy thousands of beaches across more than 7 thousand kilometers of coastline, not to mention many lakes and swimmable rivers. While Italy generally comes across as having excellent beaches, a personal anecdote reminds me of the great strides the country has taken in a few decades: summer 1992 in the Gargano, I was a kid at his first experience of Southern Italian beaches. After a day at the beach, the soles of my feet would be completely covered in black. A local lady explained to me that oil tankers would illegally wash at sea, and the resulting pollution made beaches dirty. In 2025, Puglia ranks as the Italian region with the cleanest coastal waters. Great strides, indeed. This week, we present you the results of analysis based on European Environment Agency data on Italian bathing waters, ranging all the way from excellent to (rarely) poor water quality. This is critical information not merely for tourists, but for anyone looking at relocating or retiring near the Italian coastal waters. Each year, the EEA compiles the results of an enormous exercise. Across the…
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What Italy’s Bathing Water Says About Where to Swim
Italy’s bathing water: where Italy’s cleanest beaches and lakes are, how quality varies, and how far you are from a swim.
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Luca Falda is a Veneto-born writer and strategist with a background in journalism, market research, digital publishing, and finance. A graduate of the University of Padua and a London Institute of Banking & Finance alumnus, he has held senior research roles at AOL, Townsquare Media, and Nordea before moving into investment and real-estate ventures. His work for Magic Towns Italy draws on deep local knowledge of the Veneto, long firsthand expat experience in the UK, USA, Denmark, Malta, and Italy.
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