In Germany and Italy, to welcome 2025, individuals took half in distinctive traditions, together with daring swimming and diving occasions.
While some individuals want to spend the primary day of the brand new yr recovering from the festivities at house, others take a special strategy.
In Berlin, some courageous swimmers welcomed the brand new yr with their annual ice bathing custom. Bathers from the Seals membership in Berlin swam and danced within the freezing water.
“The good factor is that it is enjoyable, it is refreshing and it is simply a part of the beginning of the brand new yr,” mentioned Harold Kraft, a member of the Berlin Seals.
The water temperature within the morning was 6°C whereas the skin temperature was 4°C.
In Italy, on New Year’s Day, three males dove into the Tiber River from Rome’s 18-meter-high Ponte Cavour to maintain alive a convention that dates again to 1946.
This yr’s occasion started with Maurizio Palmulli, who revived the custom in 1989 and is called ‘Mr. Ok,’ passing the baton to fellow veteran diver Marco Fois, who has formally introduced his retirement and determined to “hold up his swimsuit”.
Fois carried out a spectacular bounce, preceded by two different divers, Walter Schirra and Simone Carabella.
The three had been recovered from the waters of the Tiber by a staff of firefighters stopped proper beneath the bridge on a rubber dinghy.
Every yr the Netherlands additionally organizes a really well-known New Year’s Eve dive on Scheveningen seashore in The Hague. The occasion attracts round 10,000 individuals annually, beginning the yr with a dip within the freezing North Sea.
This yr, nonetheless, the annual Dutch custom needed to be canceled because of robust winds. It was solely the second time the occasion had been cancelled, the final time being in 2007 for a similar purpose.
