On a summer morning in the Swiss city of Basel, groups of commuters bob merrily down the Rhine. They’re not on boats but in their trunks, clutching fish-shaped waterproof bags that double as floats as they drift to work alongside cargo ships and gravel barges.
At lunchtime in Copenhagen, the harbour walls are packed with bronzed bodies tanning on tiered decks, and launching themselves into the water from daring wooden platforms. Office workers stop for a quick dip between meetings, while ferries cruise by. After work in Vienna, the grassy banks of the Danube throng with swimmers lounging in the dappled shade, fresh from changing in multistorey locker room towers, as a metro train rumbles across a nearby bridge.
